Another Witch to Burn

Execution of school girls and others in Germany

2009-03-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

16 people including the 17 year old gun man are dead today after a shooting in a high school. Albertville school had 9 pupils murdered, 8 of them dead and three teachers (at this point I do not know the gender of the teachers. Was nthis the purposeful execution of girls or a random event. On 25th November in 1990 a student killed women engineer students on his course because he had had enough of the "feminists". Today we remember this event by having 16 days of activity against gender based violence.

To read more about the shooting - read more here

Izevbekhai family must stay

2009-02-08T14:23:00.001-08:00

Support Pamela Izevbekhai and her two daughters against deportation
Pamela Izevbekhai and her two daughters are under threat of deportation by the Irish government. They fled Nigeria after another daughter died following female genital mutilation and Pamela's husband’s family planned to forcibly mutilate her remaining two girls. The husband remains in Nigeria but supports his wife and does not want his daughters cut.

Check out 'Let them stay' for how you can support this family . Pamela explains the process of FGM and how she tried to get help for her daughter who bled to death after being butchered, all in the name of controlling women's sexuality.

Is this not a child protection issue? In Scotland it is agzainst the law to organise FGM. If Ireland deported this family, would they be organsing FGM?

Three jailed after raping a 16 year girl and disfiguring her

2009-01-19T11:09:00.000-08:00

I started this blog in order to catalogue men's violence towards women, for myself really, for other men and women interested in these crimes but also just to catalogue the horrors. Every time I do I am shocked and appalled, but this story is horrific, the victim in this case is a 16 year old woman with learning disabilities. They poured caustic soda on her in order to destroy forensic evidence. Read it here

Three men, who filmed themselves gang-raping a 16-year-old girl before dousing her in caustic soda, have been given prison sentences of up to nine years.Skip related content
RELATED PHOTOS / VIDEOS
Three jailed for gang rape
The girl, with a mental age of eight, screamed in pain as she was disfigured for life. They later laughed while using their mobile phones to record her suffering on the first floor of an empty house undergoing renovation.

Her attackers were among a gang up to 10 who had hoped the powerful corrosive would destroy forensic evidence, Met police officers discovered. As she writhed in agony, they poured water on her, intensifying the burning.

The alarm was raised by a neighbour in Tottenham, north London, who heard her "frantic" cries and found her covered with raw patches on her face and body.

Passing sentence, Judge Shaun Lyons said: "The victim has been left with severe post traumatic stress disorder and many, many physical difficulties."

In the dock were Jamaican-born Rogel McMorris, 18, of Antill Road, Tottenham, north London, who was jailed for nine years after being convicted last month of two rape counts and one of causing grievous bodily harm.

Co-defendants Jason Brew, 19, of High Cross Road, Haringey, north London, and 20-year-old Angolan immigrant Hector Muaimba, of Guildford Road, Waltham Forest, E17, were both found guilty of one charge of rape. The each got six years for attacking the girl, although a further two years was added to Muaimba's sentence for a separate Old Bailey conviction for robbery.
The judge made no specific recommendation about how long the trio should serve and the sentences were condemned by charities representing people with learning difficulties.
Kathryn Stone, of pressure group Voice UK, said: "These sentences don't come close to reflecting the brutality and horror of this attack."

Detective Constable Alex Newton said: "After all the work and the response of the community it feels like no sentence is any justice compared to what the victim has been through. But at the same time it sends out the message that these things will be prosecuted and the offenders will be brought to justice."

Teenager standing trial for murdering her step father who she states sexually abused her

2009-01-15T15:14:00.001-08:00

A horrible story - In Australia a 19 year old girl on trial for murdering her step father she states sexually abused her from aged 14. The night she killed him she reports that he had demanded oral sex of her. Whilst he was abusing her he was also recording the abuse and capturing his abuse, his torture and rape of her.

The prosecution are saying that because she dismembered his body and then went out with a man that her step father banned her from seeing, that the murder was pre mediatated. She probably should of reported the killing and maybe dismembering was not a good idea, however look at what she is facing - being tried for murdering her abuser, when she was acting in self defence.

Andrea Dworkin said ".......they stand there in jail for us; for all women who survived, for all women who got away without ever having to pull the trigger; without ever having the trigger pulled on us..."

Read the article here http://www.news.%20com.au/adelaiden%20ow/story/%200,22606,24909535%20-5005962,%2000.html

Teen to stand trial over stepdad's murder
Article from: AAP
By Kim Stephens
January 13, 2009 08:11pm
A VICTORIAN teenager has been ordered to stand trial for the murder of her stepfather who allegedly took nearly 10,000 pornographic pictures of her in four years.The Shepparton Magistrates' Court was told that on March 13 last year, the stepdaughter shot the 34-year-old in the back of the head to put an end to daily sexual abuse that began when she was 14. The man's dismembered torso was unearthed in a shallow grave in the backyard of their Mooroopna home on April 9 and further remains were discovered two days later at a campsite nearby at Old Toolamba, in Victoria's north.

The teenager, now 19, has pleaded not guilty to murder. Her defence barrister Peter Chadwick told the court on the night of his death, the woman's stepfather ordered the accused to go to a shed at the back of their home where he demanded she perform oral sex on him. Mr Chadwick told the court when the teenager declined, citing a sore throat, the stepfather removed a shotgun from his gun cabinet, loaded it and asked her to rethink her answer. After she performed the act, she moved behind him and seeing the loaded shotgun lying on the ground, picked it up and fired it at the back of his head.

Mr Chadwick said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police her motive for her actions was so "she wouldn't have to do it again". Under cross-examination, Victoria Police homicide squad Detective Senior Constable Barry Gray said soon after the teenager was charged, police seized a series of still and video pornographic images the deceased had taken of her, which he had stored in the shed. He agreed while there were many pictures of the pair engaged in sexual activity, "by far the large majority were of just the accused". He agreed that among the images was one of the accused tied to a chair with cable ties and towels. Det Sen Const Gray said the images dated from January 2004 until February 2008 and constituted child pornography.

Mr Chadwick told Magistrate Ian von Einem the images cast no doubt on the girl's claims of sustained sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. "It has been videoed, photographed and is clear for all to see," he said. "He had used the images to blackmail her into submission. Asked by police what she thought would have happened if she hadn't killed him, she said she probably would have killed herself because she could not keep living the way she was." But Crown prosecutor Mark Gamble said the teenager's dismembering of the body and attempts to cover up the murder, along with forming a relationship with a man her stepfather had banned her from seeing three days after his death, could be construed as something other than self-defence. "She shot him so she didn't have to do it again ... a jury could form the view, albeit against a background of abuse, it was not committed in self-defence, " he said. The accused was ordered to appear at a directions hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court on January 27.

Too much to say for myself

2009-01-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

Found this feminist blog and it has some good blogs on it and also lots of comments. Its called "Too much to say for myself", which is something that was often said to me as a child "You've got too much to say fer yersel lassie, always wanting the last word"

Have a look at it here

http://toomuchtosayformyself.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/the-great-iusw-con/#more-364

Six in trial for trafficking a Thai bonded woman in Plymouth

2009-01-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

A Thai woman who was bonded into the sex trade in Britain was bought and sold for £20,000 and forced to have sex with up to 10 men a day. Luckily those involved were caught and brought to trial - however there is no report about what happened to the Thai woman. If she did not consent to being prostituted are the women who bought her for sex being traced and charged with rape? I think they should be - if they did not know she was trafficked then perhaps they should have thought about it and the other women who may not have consented to being a prostitute theat they have had sex with.

Click here to see the article in the Press and Journal

North-east woman admits part in trafficking woman
Thai citizen made to work in sex trade
By Ryan Crighton
Published: 09/01/2009
AN ABERDEEN woman has admitted her part in trafficking a Thai citizen across the UK to work in the sex trade.
Jutamas Songglin, who was caught by police trying to leave the country with £10,000 in cash, forced the 29-year-old victim to see 10 men a day at a brothel in Plymouth.
Two men and five women, including Songglin, admitted s charges relating to trafficking the 29-year-old woman across the UK, turning her to prostitution, controlling her in that trade and running a brothel in Plymouth and another in Taunton when they appeared in court.
Andrew Oldland, prosecuting, told Plymouth Crown Court: “This was an organised criminal activity, focusing on the exploitation of prostitutes for gain.”

He said the victim fell prey to loan sharks in Thailand. She was smuggled to the UK via Ireland and then sold to Jarawee Faknak and Chananchida Chankaeo for about £20,000. She was expected to work as a prostitute to pay off her “debt bond”.

She was taken to Luton, where she worked as a prostitute for about a week, and then to Plymouth.

At an earlier hearing Songglin, 26, admitted her part in trafficking the woman across the country for sexual exploitation between September and October 2007. Songglin, who is understood to have stayed at both Faulds Gate and Wallfield Place in Aberdeen, had promised the victim a job in a restaurant. However, the victim was forced to see 10 men a day before she was rescued by a client.

The court heard that Songglin was stopped at Heathrow Airport carrying £10,000 in cash in November 2007.

Faknak, 40, from Southampton, has admitted two charges of trafficking the Thai woman in the UK for sexual exploitation in September and October 2007. Chankaeo, 28, from an unknown address, had earlier admitted forcing the woman to become a prostitute in September that year.
Vithool Gomart, 51, from London, has admitted trafficking her in the UK for sexual exploitation in September and October 2007.

Yu Ming Lee, 32, from Nottingham, admitted controlling the woman as a prostitute in September 2007.

Mee Wong, 41, and her daughter Grace Lim, 20, both from London, admitted two charges of managing the brothels in Plymouth and Taunton between June and October 2007.

On Wednesday, Judge Francis Gilbert remanded all in custody, except Wong, who was released to care for her four-month-old baby. All seven will be sentenced at Plymouth Crown Court on February 5.

Accounts of forced marriage in Observer

2009-01-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

I am of the opinion that violence against women is cultural, it's in our culture for men to have priviledge over women, therefor violence against women is part of all our cultures, the patriarchy seeps in and finds ways to abuse women. Different cultures do it in different ways - in some cultures it is by forced marriage, other cultures do it in different ways. Over 100 south Asian girls disappear in the UK every year from school, thats 2 a week but their disappearance is not questioned.

Read some accounts in the Observer here

Abducted. Abused. Raped. Survived
British Asian women are being pushed by their families into forced marriages, unprotected by the authorities. Rebecca Seal and Eva Wiseman meet the escapees
Rebecca Seal and Eva Wiseman
The Observer, Sunday 11 January 2009
Article history

The case of Humayra Abedin, the doctor held captive in Bangladesh and forced to get married, made headlines last month, but every year as many as 200 women are repatriated to the UK after they have been forcibly taken abroad to marry. Last year the Government's Forced Marriage Unit received over 5,000 calls for help from women who feared for their freedom; the unit's case-load has increased by 79 per cent since 2007. Some women are beyond help, like the Muslim teenager from Cheshire whose decomposing body was found on a Cumbrian riverbank in February 2004. Her parents were arrested on suspicion of kidnap, but no one has ever been charged. In April, the charity Karma Nirvana, which helps survivors of so-called honour crimes, launched the Honour Network, a phone line for victims of forced marriage, staﬀed by survivors. We spoke to ﬁve women who escaped from their forced marriages.

Jasvinder Sanghera
Jasvinder, 43, lives with her three children in Derby. She founded Karma Nirvana in 1994.
I come from a family of seven sisters, and I watched each of them disappear. They'd be taken out of school, sent abroad, and brought back as wives. When I was 14 my mother showed me a photo of the man I'd been promised to since I was eight years old. I refused to marry him, and for that I was abused, physically and mentally - my sisters told me I would give my dad a heart attack, or my mum would get cancer if I kept fighting them. At 15, they locked me in my room until I agreed to the marriage. I took an overdose as a protest, and my sister refused to get me medical attention. They wore me down. My friends at the time were concentrating on discos, boys. Of course I wasn't allowed to socialise, even before being locked away - white people were dirty to my parents. I had a boyfriend at the time, secretly.

I saw my sisters suffer horrific domestic violence. Each time they were hurt, I'd go with my mother to talk to them. I thought we were going to rescue them, but instead my mother would lecture them about being better wives. They'd be sitting there with broken ribs. One was sectioned.

I watched my wedding plans as if from above and then, aged 16, I ran away with my boyfriend. We went to Newcastle and slept in parks and hostels. The police tracked me down, and made me ring home. My mother answered. She told me I was dishonoured, shamed, a prostitute. She told me from that day I was dead to her. By disowning me, my mother had won the respect of the community. I missed my family terribly. I'd drive down their street at night to see my dad walking back from the foundry where he worked.

I never experienced love growing up. I was groomed to understand the rules. It was an environment of fear - there were such contradictions between the independence and hope I learned at school, and the conditions at home. I vividly remember being shown that photo of my intended husband. He was very old, and shorter than me. When I left, my little sister married him instead.

I married my boyfriend, and gave birth to my first child when I was 19. Holding her was the first time I'd experienced unconditional love. I still kept ringing home, but my mother would always hang up. I started working on a market stall, and one day someone approached me and told me to ring home. When I called, they told me that my sister Robina, who was 24, had died. She'd doused herself in paraffin and set herself on fire. She knew that because of izzat, or shame, that suicide was the only way out of her marriage. [The suicide rate for Asian women is two to three times higher than the national average.] My mother told me I could only come to the house to pay my respects after dark. When I walked into a room, everyone else would leave.
In time I started to understand where they were coming from. My father didn't leave his traditions behind at Heathrow. Growing up in Britain taught me I had choices; I was brought up Sikh but I'm part of the new community who are breaking the silence.

I feel lonely at birthdays, but I'd do it all again. In one area we investigated recently, 100 south-Asian girls went missing from school in a year. There are 33 we still can't account for. It's this way because teachers and the police are afraid of being politically incorrect.

I get death threats. I've had human faeces smeared on my window. An Asian magistrate said I was an imposter and a liar. He's the person our girls have to approach for protection orders. Another man said I was a disgrace - I allowed my 23-year-old daughter to date; I had a white partner. I've had to buy a dog for protection. The police taught me how to look for 'devices' under my car. I tried for a while but I decided to stop. I know that if you let it, fear will wear you out.

Mayah
Mayah, 32, has withheld her real name for safety reasons. She lives with her mother and two sons in the Midlands.

I was born a British citizen to a strict Sikh family, but I didn't grow up in the UK. For my safety I don't want to say where I grew up. Mine was a very suppressed family. We were forced to wear Punjabi clothes, not to mix with the male figures in the family. My family is wealthy and well known. Everyone would pretend to be perfect, but if we were seen to misbehave, we were punished severely.

Academically I was above average, and in the national swimming team. When I was 14 I was offered a sports scholarship to America. But my father said I couldn't go, on the basis that I would be swimming nearly naked in front of strangers. His refusal was a turning point for me and I started to fall behind at school. I also met someone, Peter, who was the brother of one of my classmates and we fell in love.

When I was 17 I was very seriously assaulted. Although they caught the man who did it, my father refused to allow me to go to court, as he said I was shaming the family and that it was my fault that it had happened. I began to see that my parents would never understand me and so I ran away with Peter. But because I was still a minor and the police were involved, I came back home and was beaten up very badly, and then held under house arrest for about six months. Food was given to me in the doorway of my bedroom. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone.
Finally, they began to let me out and I was allowed to finish my A levels. I called Peter and he said, 'Well, let's get married'. We got married secretly in November 1996. For the first five days we were on the run from my family. When they heard they called a meeting with the family elders, his and mine, because he was Christian and I was Sikh. They asked if I'd got married under duress, and I said, 'No, I love him.' My father had to let me go: he couldn't do anything else in front of everyone. But on the tenth day of our marriage, people disguised as policemen came and 'arrested' us. They'd been hired by my dad. Peter was taken away and I was taken to one of my father's workshops by men with guns. I was beaten up and they told me that my marriage was over. Peter was told I was dead.

That night my family and our doctor drove me into the countryside. They took me out of the car, and my uncle took me away at gunpoint - I could feel the gun pressing into my forehead. The doctor sedated me and I woke up in a house across the border where I was kept for about two weeks. I was guarded all the time and injected with more sedatives.

After that my family sorted out visas for India. The doctor wrote a letter saying I was mentally ill, and that I was going to India for treatment. They wheeled me into the airport in a wheelchair. I tried to cry out, but the doctor told everyone that I was just very ill.

Once we were in India with my family they started to groom me to be a 'proper' wife. I realised I was pregnant with Peter's child and I told my parents. The doctor gave my father pills and my father would force me to swallow one. Of all the things that happened to me, that was the most terrible. I still remember lying on the bed in pain, miscarrying and my parents standing at the bedside, watching me. After that, I succumbed and my father told me I was to marry a man who needed my British citizenship.

The marriage had to take place in England. When my husband arrived in England he began to drink a lot and was violent. I fell pregnant and after my son was born my husband even tried to smother me and the baby. I got pregnant again. On the day I gave birth his family were having lunch at my house, and I was cooking for them when I went into labour. I called the ambulance myself because no one would drive me.

After six years he violently raped me. I had to have an abortion. One day we were driving into Winchester where we both worked and he opened the car door and tried to push me out. When I got to work I called the domestic-violence unit; the police finally intervened.

For a month we lived in a refuge, and then I got the right to use the house, and he was kicked out. My life was getting back on track. But I had a breakdown and ended up in hospital. When I relapsed in 2006, social services gave my ex-husband interim custody and it took me two years to get my children back. Finally he was arrested on six charges of assault, and is now out of my life. My mother has to live with me here in the UK, because I have long-term health issues from what happened to me. I never reached Peter, but I have begun to forgive my parents. Forgiving them was the only way to make myself free.

Baljit Kaur Howard
Baljit, 39, lives with her second husband in Ipswich. She was forced to marry at 17.
I was born to Sikh parents in the Punjab and came to the UK when I was one. I attended western schools but at home it was as though we lived in India, wearing Indian clothes and speaking Punjabi. From the ages of seven to nine I lived in India, and the school didn't realise I'd been away for two years. We came back and I spoke no English at all, and I went back to junior and then secondary school. My attendance was 100 per cent for two years but once I was an adolescent it fell below 50 per cent, as I was kept at home to cook, clean and look after the family. I was being groomed to be a wife.

Aged 17 I was taken to meet the man who was going to be my husband. On the way home my father asked me what I thought, and I said, 'He's not for me, really, Dad.' He replied, 'You're going to marry him whether you like it or not, and if you run away, I'll find you and kill you.'
I married at the register office three weeks later. We went our separate ways after that, as this part of the marriage was just to keep him in the country. Months later we had the full Indian wedding, which lasted four days. I did think about running away - but I had nowhere to go. I was shipped off to Huddersfield with a total stranger and his family. I was 17. My mother told me it was my duty to do whatever my husband told me.

On the first night I was given warm milk, which made me drowsy, and that I suspect was drugged, then I was raped by my husband. I'd never even been touched by a man before. I stayed in the marriage for eight-and-a-half years. I thought about suicide an awful lot. I did take an overdose at one point: the doctors put me on tranquillisers - I was a walking ghost.
I had three miscarriages, which was perhaps a blessing in disguise. It was on my last miscarriage that I decided to leave. I asked my parents if they would help me get out of my marriage and they just went mad - they told I was expected to stay with him forever.

But I had to go. It took me three months to plan it. I went through every cupboard, even turned up the carpets, because I knew if they had my National Insurance number and name, they would find me. I got the first job I went for in London. I decided to get myself an education: studying lessened the isolation. But all this time I'd hear from home that my mum had had a heart attack, that she was in hospital because of what I'd done. And then they moved - because I'd brought so much shame on the family
.
In 2003 I took a trip round the world on my own: I did a sky dive, walked on a glacier, went white-water rafting and I've even been to rock festivals - me, who wasn't even allowed to watch Top of the Pops! I've been married for nearly four years now to a lovely man (who is a quarter Japanese, quarter German and half English) - we invited my family to the wedding, and although 300 people came, they did not. He loves me unconditionally, as do his family. I still can't believe it's real sometimes.

Jasvinder Chana-Glen
Jasvinder, 40, lives with her sons and husband in Derby. She hasn't seen her family for 13 years.
I ran away from home in 1979. I grew up in Birmingham and I knew from a very early age that I would have an arranged marriage, from as young as 11 or 12. All my sisters had been married through the arranged system. I was very frightened by what I saw them go through and I wanted to leave. But I didn't imagine the repercussions of disownment would be just as bad as if I'd had an arranged marriage, but they were. When you leave home like I did you lose your whole community - single independent women are simply not accepted, I certainly wasn't.
My worth as a girl was very low. I had no future. There was physical abuse from my siblings that was just condoned by my parents. My parents were very unhappy that they'd had four daughters because they were people who were born in the 1920s, for whom having boy children was hugely important.

I was 17 when I ran away. I had confided in a teacher and she helped me. Education was not important to my parents - sewing, cooking and serving people in the family were considered much more relevant. I wanted to study so I did, which was fortunate because after I left home I went into nursing, and then social work, and I've done well in 25 years.

After I ran away, I lived in my teacher's house for a short time, and then went off to become a nurse. I looked after myself by always making sure I was part of a big institution. I did try to make contact with my family but it was always fraught. My mother turned me away at the door, which was very, very painful. I was told my father had said I was no longer his daughter. Other people in the extended family knew I'd left home, and so I'd brought shame on the family. My final contact was when I decided that I was going to get married to an Englishman when I was 27, and to my family that was really the final straw. It was actually my sisters' husbands more than anyone who made sure none of the family saw me, and my sisters probably wouldn't have been able to stay in their marriages if they had fought for me, but even so, I found that very hard.

I've struggled to understand why any parent could do this. I have two grown-up sons, and they've been disowned by my family, too. It's awful that they should have to suffer - my children have a right to family life, to the aunties and uncles that are out there for them.
Now, as well as social work, I work on Karma Nirvana's Honour Network helpline, which is a national line for people affected by honour-based violence or forced marriage. We talk to about 250 people a week, and numbers are always increasing. It's only recently that anyone has had someone to talk to about this kind of thing.

With the passing of the Forced Marriage Act in 2007, there are signs of improvement. Volunteering gives me affirmation of the choices that I've made. It's not been until now that I've been able to talk to other people who've gone through the same things as me. Breaking the silence after 30 years is very important to me. I was so easily silenced by my family.

Shazia Qayum
Shazia, 28, fled her family home in Birmingham in a police car when she was 17. She never went back.

When I was 12, my best friend, Samina [Nawaz] and I were in the park on a half day from school. Someone told her dad that she was skipping school, bringing shame on the family, and he came and found us. He pulled her home by her hair, shot her, and then her sister, and her mother and then himself, to restore their honour. And nobody said a word. The murders were hidden. I felt invisible. But I learned the power of honour.

At 15 I was presented with a photograph of my cousin in Pakistan. Saying no to marriage was not an option. I tried, but my parents locked me up. I thought someone at school or from social services would ask questions, but they didn't. My parents got our GP to write a sick note and I was kept home, a prisoner, for six months. At 16 I took a job in our local factory and I starting paying money into a secret bank account. A year later I was taken to Pakistan to meet my grandparents for the first time. I knew there'd be a wedding, but I didn't know it would be mine. I was still stubborn, but I was also thousands of miles away from home, and extremely scared - my parents took my passport and said they'd leave me behind if I didn't marry this man. On the day of the wedding, I met him for the first time and I told him I was being forced into it. He didn't care, he just wanted a British passport. He agreed that we wouldn't consummate the marriage but later he raped me. A friend helped me write letters to the British embassy saying I had been married under duress. The letters were ignored. We moved back to Birmingham, where I called the police. They agreed to escort me out when my father was working and my family were at the mosque. They took my statement, and then sent me on my way. I had nowhere to go. I stayed in a bed and breakfast for six months, down a road 10 minutes from my family. I was suicidal. I started calling my mother, pleading for them to let me come home. They said they'd told my three-year-old brother I'd been killed in a car accident. Now he's 13.
I went to live in a refuge for victims of domestic abuse, but my father tracked me down through my National Insurance number. I learned a lot from that - how to make sure a woman's details are treated as sensitive, meaning that her address and details are dealt with only on paper.
This isn't all my parents' doing. My grandfather decided whom I'd marry when I was born. There are generations upon generations of values and issues to contend with. I've heard stories much more horrific than mine. I hear about girls who were forced to get pregnant. One girl's parents kidnapped her baby and took him to Saudi Arabia. She was given a caution for wasting police time. Last year, Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, who had told the police she was scared for her life, was raped, murdered, stuffed into a suitcase and buried under the house. But I do believe there is some hope - the family have been prosecuted after all. At Eid I still hope for a card from my parents, but I know inside it'll never come.

• Honour Network helpline: 0800 5999 247. Daughters of Shame is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £12.99

Give me back my kidney! He wailed!

2009-01-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7818751.stm

Divorce man 'wants kidney back'A US man divorcing his wife is demanding that she return the kidney he donated to her or pay him $1.5m (£1m) in compensation.Dr Richard Batista told reporters that he decided to go public because he was frustrated at the slow pace of divorce negotiations with his estranged wife.He said he had not only given his heart to his wife, Dawnell, but donated his kidney to save her life.But divorce lawyers say a donated organ is not a marital asset to be divided.

Dr Batista married Dawnell in 1990 and donated the kidney to her in 2001. She filed for divorce in 2005 and a settlement has still not been reached.'Humiliated'He told reporters at his lawyer's office in Long Island, New York, that going public was a last resort."There is no deeper pain that you can ever express than betrayal from somebody who you love and devoted your life to," he said.He said he had been prevented from seeing their three children for extended periods."I felt humiliated, betrayed, disrespected and disregarded for me as a person, as a man, as a husband, as a father."

Dr Batista's lawyer, Dominic Barbara, said his client was "asking for the value of the kidney" that he gave his wife.A lawyer for Mrs Batista said: "The facts aren't as represented by Dr Batista. We will be addressing the issues before the judge within the next few days.

OMG! It's one thing being angry or even bitter but demanding back a transplanted kidney is as bad as it gets , an example of power and control, I can't have you so I will demand back my kidney that has been transplanted into your body- I am sure he will be told by the court where to go!

Torture of children on sale in Cambodia

2009-01-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

From the New York Times link is here

And more here

January 1, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist
The Evil Behind the Smiles
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Western men who visit red-light districts in poor countries often find themselves surrounded by coquettish teenage girls laughingly tugging them toward the brothels. The men assume that the girls are there voluntarily, and in some cases they are right.
But anyone inclined to take the girls' smiles at face value should talk to Sina Vann, who was once one of those smiling girls.
Sina is Vietnamese but was kidnapped at the age of 13 and taken to Cambodia, where she was drugged. She said she woke up naked and bloody on a bed with a white man — she doesn't know his nationality — who had purchased her virginity.
After that, she was locked on the upper floors of a nice hotel and offered to Western men and wealthy Cambodians. She said she was beaten ferociously to force her to smile and act seductive.
"My first phrase in Khmer," the Cambodian language, "was, 'I want to sleep with you,' " she said. "My first phrase in English was" — well, it's unprintable.
Sina mostly followed instructions and smiled alluringly at men because she would have been beaten if men didn't choose her. But sometimes she was in such pain that she resisted, and then she said she would be dragged down to a torture chamber in the basement.
"Many of the brothels have these torture chambers," she said. "They are underground because then the girls' screams are muffled."
As in many brothels, the torture of choice was electric shocks. Sina would be tied down, doused in water and then prodded with wires running from the 220-volt wall outlet. The jolt causes intense pain, sometimes evacuation of the bladder and bowel — and even unconsciousness.
Shocks fit well into the brothel business model because they cause agonizing pain and terrify the girls without damaging their looks or undermining their market value.
After the beatings and shocks, Sina said she would be locked naked in a wooden coffin full of biting ants. The coffin was dark, suffocating and so tight that she could not move her hands up to her face to brush off the ants. Her tears washed the ants out of her eyes.
She was locked in the coffin for a day or two at a time, and she said this happened many, many times.
Finally, Sina was freed in a police raid, and found herself blinded by the first daylight she had seen in years. The raid was organized by Somaly Mam, a Cambodian woman who herself had been sold into the brothels but managed to escape, educate herself and now heads a foundation fighting forced prostitution.
After being freed, Sina began studying and eventually became one of Somaly's trusted lieutenants. They now work together, in defiance of death threats from brothel owners, to free other girls. To get at Somaly, the brothel owners kidnapped and brutalized her 14-year-old daughter. And six months ago, the daughter of another anti-trafficking activist (my interpreter when I interviewed Sina) went missing.
I had heard about torture chambers under the brothels but had never seen one, so a few days ago Sina took me to the red-light district here where she once was imprisoned. A brothel had been torn down, revealing a warren of dungeons underneath.
"I was in a room just like those," she said, pointing. "There must be many girls who died in those rooms." She grew distressed and added: "I'm cold and afraid. Tonight I won't sleep."
"Photograph quickly," she added, and pointed to brothels lining the street. "It's not safe to stay here long."
Sina and Somaly sustain themselves with a wicked sense of humor. They tease each other mercilessly, with Sina, who is single, mock-scolding Somaly: "At least I had plenty of men until you had to come along and rescue me!"
Sex trafficking is truly the 21st century's version of slavery. One of the differences from 19th-century slavery is that many of these modern slaves will die of AIDS by their late 20s.
Whenever I report on sex trafficking, I come away less depressed by the atrocities than inspired by the courage of modern abolitionists like Somaly and Sina. They are risking their lives to help others still locked up in the brothels, and they have the credibility and experience to lead this fight. In my next column, I'll introduce a girl that Sina is now helping to recover from mind-boggling torture in a brothel — and Sina's own story gives hope to the girl in a way that an army of psychologists couldn't.
I hope that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will recognize slavery as unfinished business on the foreign policy agenda. The abolitionist cause simply hasn't been completed as long as 14-year-old girls are being jolted with electric shocks — right now, as you read this — to make them smile before oblivious tourists.

Santa and Familicide

2008-12-27T01:54:00.000-08:00

In Britain every six weeks a man will have his power and priviledge taken away and will choose a henious way to express that - familicide. Killing his family, sometimes they are sucessful in their attempt to kill themselves, sometimes it is just their children, sometimes their wife/girlfriend too and sometimes it is the whole extended family.

In New York on Christmas Eve 2008 a man identified as Padro, aged 45 dressed up as Santa Claus and exterminated his ex-wife's extended family and their children. 8 are now dead. He shot an 8 year old girl who exitably answered the door to Santa Claus point blank in the face and made a device out of a christmas present that sprayed flammable liquid on the party goers. His wife divorced him after a year, he was not happy about the divorce and took vengeance on her and her family. He later killed himself. This is not a mental illness, this is not suicidal ideation but homicidal ideation and intent Read more here. Our thoughts should go to the family where this most monstrous of crimes happened.

Until the violence and killing stops we cannot be silent about men's violemnce towards women and their children.

Jacqui Smith - criminalising the buying of sex

2008-11-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

I can't understand the argument that calls for prostitution to be legalised except that it would make it easier ont he prostitute - if only that was the case however there is no praxis to the argument, where prostitution is legal - the sex industry goes through the roof.

And I am sick to death being called a ant-sex feminist. why am I anti-sex because I deplore men buying women's sexual consent - what's so sexy about that. I fully support shifting the responsibility of prostitution away from women and onto men - they should think before they randomly buy sex from a woman. It is estimated that 9 out of 10 prostitutes are trafficked, pimped or have chronic substance abuse problems for me that is abuse, why do men want to have sex with an abused woman? Is it a power and control thing, seems like it to me. The majority of men are having sex with women whose consent is negotiated by an abuser - now I understand the boring old "my wife does n't understand me" but I don't understand them. Perhaps if they had a better attitude about sex as opposed to power and control their wife/partner might be able to express herself sexually rather than be put on a pedastal as his lovely wife.

I do however agree with the English Collective of Prostitutes on women's poverty. Equal Pay for women in Britain is lagging way behind, and child care is extortionate. There are many more policies needed and especially money needed to make safe routes out on prostitution fopr those that want to make those routes.

From Observer, 16th November 2008

Home Secretary plans to crack down on vice trade on the streets, while lapdancing clubs will face a stringent licensing regime

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 16 2008 00.01 GMT
The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
Article history

The Home Secretary has attacked the 'bizarre' practice of City firms entertaining clients in lapdancing clubs, on the eve of a government crackdown on the sex trade which is expected to criminalise most men who use prostitutes.

Jacqui Smith said she expected to see some lapdancing clubs, which have mushroomed in recent years, close and fewer new ones opened under reforms triggered by concerns over a seedy culture of sexual titillation creeping across city centres. She will outline plans this week to criminalise paying for sex with a woman 'controlled for another person's gain'. The new offence will carry a hefty fine and criminal record, which could prevent those caught from getting jobs in sensitive occupations.

The legislation will cover women who have pimps or drug addicts who work to pay off their dealers as well as the rarer cases of trafficked women. This is expected to include the majority of Britain's 80,000 sex workers. Ignorance of a woman's circumstances will not be a defence. Kerb crawlers will be 'named and shamed', while those who pay a prostitute knowing she has been forcibly trafficked could face rape charges.

The measures are highly controversial, with critics arguing that men will seek other outlets if prostitution is driven off the streets. Smith said it was 'not mine or the government's responsibility to ensure that the demand is satisfied', adding: 'Is this something about which people have a choice with respect to their demands? Yes, they do. Basically, if it means fewer people are able to go out and pay for sex I think that would be a good thing.'

The prostitution review will be published this week, followed later this month by new licensing arrangements that are expected to see lapdancing clubs, currently licensed in the same way as pubs, subjected to the same stringent regime as sex shops, allowing local residents more opportunities to object.

Smith said she believed the law had been 'left behind' by the explosion in lapdancing clubs, which were seen as acceptable entertainment for a corporate night out. 'If I were a business person and I were wanting to make the best impression on clients, who presumably are female as well as male, I do think it's a bit bizarre that you would take them to a lapdancing club,' she said.

The new regime would make it more difficult to open them. 'It's not a complete ban on lapdancing clubs, but it's saying you don't operate in a vacuum, you have an impact on the community around you. I would hope it would make it harder for them to open, certainly in residential areas, and I would suspect that some of them will be closed when the licences come up for renewal.'

The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), which has vigorously opposed the clampdown, says outlawing paid-for sex between consenting adults will punish women who find this more lucrative than menial jobs. Forcing the trade underground would mean that 'the risks they are forced to take will be greater', said a spokeswoman.

One anonymous lapdancer who provided a statement for the ECP said she could earn £250 in four hours of dancing. 'Nine out of 10 women turn to prostitution or lapdancing because there's not enough money to survive. Recently my mum couldn't afford a pair of school shoes for my brother and sister. When I worked a day job I couldn't help her, but now I can.

'If the government is offended by the work we do, then give us the financial means to get out.' She said that there was 'no pressure to have sex with men, only opportunities', in her job.

The ECP's argument has been fuelled by the glamorisation of sex work at the hands of bloggers such as Belle de Jour, the call girl whose memoir became a bestselling book and then a TV film: she claimed to love sex and regarded working as an escort for £300 as a better option than temping.

Smith said that she did not believe that was true of most sex workers. Under the new offence, men would not be able to claim in court that they had not known the prostitute had a pimp or a drug habit. 'It won't be enough to say, "I didn't know",' she said. 'What I hope people will say is, "I am not actually going to take the risk if there is any concern that this woman hasn't made a free choice." It would be quite difficult for a man paying for sex in the majority of cases not to fall under this particular offence.'

She had ruled out a universal ban on paid sex because some women argued they did it out of choice 'and it's not my job to criminalise the demand for that'.

Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society pressure group, which has campaigned for a clampdown on lapdancing clubs, welcomed the planned curbs. 'People have suddenly woken up to the fact that our city centres have changed very dramatically and that has an impact on us all, it being part of the culture of sexualisation. It has been a silent creep, but a deadly one in terms of what it meant for social attitudes and how women feel in public spaces.'

Man jailed for bride murder bid

2008-11-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

Muhammed Rashad, narrowly missed being one of the 120 men who kill their partners or ex-partners every year in Britain, he strangled, battered and tried to suffocate his wife Zahida, at their home in Glasgow, in October 2007, luckily she survived.

The attack happened after she had failed to answer the phone.

Report from BBC News

Rashad was told that he could be deported after his sentence

A man who tried to kill his new bride weeks after their wedding in Pakistan has been jailed for seven years at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Muhammed Rashad, 29, strangled, battered and tried to suffocate his cousin, Zahida, at their home in Kings Park, Glasgow, last October.

The attack happened after she had failed to answer the phone.

Rashad was convicted of attempted murder in September. He was told he could be deported after his sentence.

The court heard how Rashad attacked his wife after demanding to know where she was when he tried to phone her.

She told him she had been in the house but had not heard the phone.

Rashad called her stupid before repeatedly punching her, slapping her with his hands and hitting her with a wooden spoon until it broke.

The woman then ran to her father-in-law's room and begged for help.

You were found guilty of a prolonged, violent, dangerous and frightening attack on your young wife who was then in a particularly vulnerable position

Lord Kingarth

The court was told that he did nothing while Rashad kicked her and wrapped a mobile phone charger cord around her neck.

Rashid then tried to strangle his wife with his hands and smother her with a pillow.

Jailing him, judge Lord Kingarth, said: "You were found guilty of a prolonged, violent, dangerous and frightening attack on your young wife who was then in a particularly vulnerable position, she having only recently come from Pakistan to live in the United Kingdom.

"This is a matter which this court has to take seriously.

"In all the circumstances I am satisfied that only a substantial custodial sentence is appropriate."

Lord Kingarth said he did not think it appropriate to recommend deporting Rashad because he had lived in the UK for years, had not offended before, and was deemed to be at low-risk of re-offending.

But he said that the Secretary of State had the power to send him back to his native Pakistan after his sentence.

Nagging and Infidelty is no defence

2008-11-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

Good on Harriet Harmon, that bourgeois feminist that she is - she's taking on the judges and telling them to get with it! No longer will "provocation" be accepted in crimes of murder where female partners and ex-partners are the victims. No longer will the excuse of she was a "nag" or she humiliated me when she left me for the local train-spotter" be a defence! And quite right too. See the article in the Observer here

There is a lot written about "Honour Based Violence" usually focused on BME communities however in indigenous Britain the defence of provocation is accepted when a husband murders his cheating or nagging wife. His honour was lost when his property left him for another man or she was sleeping with his friends - so he murdered her. It seems to be accepted but it should not be. It is in fact a murder in the context of domestic abuse - it is a domestic abuse murder. Joseph McGrail was cleared of murder in 1991 when a judge said "her nagging would test the patients of a saint". 120 women are murdered in Britain every year by their partners or ex-partners.

Activists have fought for years for provocation to be used in the cases of women like Emma Humphries, Kiranjit Ahluwalia and Sara Thorton who killed their abusers - but they were found to be murders and their abuse, their rape and torture was dismissed and these women were seen to be evil.

And further legislation will be coming into place to criminalise buying sex from a woman who is being prostituted for another's gain. I am glad this is all coming to pass. Buying sex from a woman who is pimped, trafficked or prostituted by another is not consensual sex and should be deemed as rape. The woman cannot give her free consent because her safety and life is controlled by another. The sooner the better that we see such legislation.

There is no excuse for domestic abuse!

This isnot an invitation to rape me

2008-11-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

Hope you have seen the fantastic campaign from Rape Crisis Scotland and the Scottish Government called "this is not an invitation to rape me"

Check out their website here

Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary are supporting the campaign - see here

Prostitution in Edinburgh

2008-03-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Prostitution has been rife in Edinburgh years and the Scottish Government built it's HQ very near to the old "red light district" of Coburg Street. Brothels in Edinburgh are getting busted read here

I really worry about the growth in prostitution and how women from around the world find themselves here selling their bodies and consent to Scottish men. Prostitution does not exist because it is the oldest profession in the world but because there is a demand for it. It saddens me that in the city I love so much that there is such a demand to buy sex

Murders that demand a radical shift in attitudes

2008-02-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

The past week we have seen three men convicted and sentenced for horrific murders of women - Levi Bellfield, Steve Wright and Mark Dixie are now where they should be behind bars. There are calls for hanging and for everyone to hand over their DNA, two of the men were caught by historic DNA however we don't all have to hand over our DNA at all - there is something that is common between these three men and that is they had a history of violence towards women and girls and they bought sex from prostitutes. we need the DNA of men who are violent to women and from those who buy sex from prostitutes. Prostituted women are 18 times more likely to be murdered than women who are not prostitutes, the majority of those that kill, batter, rape, threaten and abuse prostitutes also buy sex from prostitutes.

Joan Smith had a thoughtful article in the Independent today.The online article is here

Thursday, 28 February 2008

Bring back hanging! I've heard it many times in the last week, following the convictions of three men for the murders of eight young women. On Tuesday, Levi Bellfield was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, the same sentence that Steve Wright was given at the end of last week. Mark Dixie will serve a minimum of 34 years after a trial in which, amazingly, he denied murder but admitted necrophilia.

In each case, the details which emerged in court were horrific, and phone-in shows resound with demands for capital punishment. Alternatively, because of the role played by DNA in identifying Dixie and Wright, there have been suggestions that the entire population should be on a DNA database.

The first impulse stems from a desire for revenge, the second from a feeling that "something must be done". Both should be resisted, and the fact that they are being made at all is evidence of a state of collective denial. Leaving aside the overwhelming moral case against the death penalty, the judicial murder of a few notorious offenders will not stop violence against women, and risks distorting public perceptions about the subject even further.

What is striking about Wright and Bellfield is that so many people were aware that they abused women but nobody felt able to do anything about it. In a society where domestic violence is commonplace and rape goes unpunished, what is someone to do when they suspect that a man is abusing girls and women?

I am not arguing that all men treat women badly. But a substantial minority do, and we refuse to read the signals or condemn their behaviour unequivocally. Bellfield had a reputation for picking up under-age girls and having sex with them in the back of his van, even offering to prostitute his 16-year-old "girlfriend" and her 14-year-old sister to an employee; a former partner recalled finding magazines in which he slashed photographs of blonde women, with whom he had a lethal obsession.

Wright had a series of violent relationships, attacking partners and abusing them as "slags" and "whores". The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, told a drinking friend he had attacked a woman with a stone hidden in a sock, but it took five years for the man to inform the police; while he was thinking about it, 13 women were murdered and half a dozen others attacked.

There is no need to put the entire country, including women and children, on a DNA database to discover the identity of men who pose a threat to women. Despite all the calls I've had from journalists over the past few days, asking me what motivates men like Wright, Dixie and Bellfield, there is no great mystery about it.

Men do not commit such crimes out of the blue; most of them don't even bother to hide their hatred of women. There is usually a childhood history of domestic violence, which means that they grow up in an atmosphere of physical fear and contempt for women, whom they regard both as victims and the cause of their fathers' violence.

I've heard a great deal about the role of absent mothers in the psychopathology of men who kill women, but cause and effect are being confused here; a misogynist culture inevitably overlooks the father's role and blames the mother, even when her reason for leaving the family is to escape violence.

When boys from such homes become men, they provide plenty of warnings in the form of abusive behaviour to wives and girlfriends and histories of sexual violence. Dixie had a lengthy criminal record, including five convictions for sexual offences, but served only brief prison sentences. With only one in 20 rapes reported to the police ending in a conviction, most rapists get away with their crimes; the Soham murderer, Ian Huntley, was accused of rape on five occasions but none of the cases got to court, leaving him free to kill two 10-year girls.

If we're serious about preventing more horrific murders, social attitudes have to change dramatically. That means reversing the popular assumption that most rapes aren't really rapes at all because the victim had been drinking or knew her attacker. The other thing that's needed is an acknowledgement of the inextricable link between prostitution and sexual violence.

It isn't a lack of licensed brothels that makes selling sex dangerous; it's the kind of men who buy it. Women who work as prostitutes are 18 times more likely to be murdered than the rest of us, for the simple reason that their "clients" include a high proportion of men who enjoy humiliating and hurting women. That's the group whose DNA detectives need to get their hands on; if we changed the law to allow the police to arrest men who try to buy sex, they could clear up a huge number of unsolved sexual attacks

Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline reaches record levels.

2008-02-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

Lets hope the helpline is reaching record levels because women are asking for help rather than men's violence against women is increasing.

The tel is 0800 027 1234, it is free, confidental and cannot be traced.

The helpline said more victims feel confident about coming forwardThe number of calls to a helpline for victims of domestic violence is at a record high.
More than 21,000 calls were made to the Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline (SDAH) last year, an increase of 3% on 2006.
It is believed the rise is because more victims feel confident enough to come forward and ask for help.
The callers were mostly women but a significant number were men and children. Some of the youngsters wanted to get help for their mothers.
The helpline said the problem affected people from all parts of Scotland regardless of age, background and social class.
The calls are not just about physical abuse, many were in relation to psychological or emotional abuse

The Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell is now calling for more to be done to tackle domestic abuse.
He said: "While we have made progress in changing attitudes and encouraging women to report domestic abuse, there is still a lot more work to do in tackling this problem.
"The helpline is an important partner for us in tackling domestic abuse and their help has transformed the lives of many women and their children.
He said it was important that people were encouraged to seek help and report incidents to the police so the true extent of the problem could be discovered and perpetrators properly punished.
Helpline number
Liz Kelly, head of training at the SDAH, said: "We have had calls that range from people looking for immediate help to get out of a relationship because of domestic abuse, women looking for refuge accommodation, women who need urgent medical attention or who want to report incidents of domestic abuse to the police.
"The calls are not just about physical abuse, many were in relation to psychological or emotional abuse, which was highlighted by the Scottish Government's awareness campaign."
The Scottish Domestic Abuse Helpline number is 0800 027 1234 and lines are open 24 hours and calls are free, confidential and cannot be traced.

Chinese trafficked prostitutes in Stirling

2008-02-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

The only way to stop tafficking of women for prostitution is to stop prostitution. Any man found to have had sex with these women should be charged wth rape. The men paying to have sex with these women were hardly going for conversation or because "my wife doesn't understand me".

by Tim Bugler from the Scotsman Newspaper
FOUR Chinese women trafficked into Scotland by gangs to work in the sex industry have been found during a series of raids by police.
The women, in their 20s, were found in two separate properties in Grangemouth and an up- market area of Stirling.Two Chinese men were arrested at the same time.A police source said yesterday: "This is an excellent result and once again illustrates the insidious extent of the sex trade in Scotland."This weekend is the start of Chinese New Year, and for these four girls, the Year of the Rat should be an awful lot happier than recent times that they have endured."Girls like these tend to come from very rural and very poor parts of China. They would have been forced to hand over many thousands of pounds to the snakeheads, after being promised jobs here as waitresses, dancers or nannies."They then have to endure dreadful conditions as they are trafficked through Central Asia, the Balkans and eastern Europe, before arriving in Britain without anything, apart from the hollow promise of a new life."Unfortunately, the girls who the police rescued are the tip of an iceberg, and there will always be many hundreds of others back in China more than happy to try their luck in Britain."

Domestic abuse rises when Euro game on

2008-02-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

This is probably connected to alcohol and men's entitlement to believe their female partners can make them feel OK and when they can't cause their team got beat well she deserves it. It was my birthday that night so I chose to stay in with my partner as i knew it wouldn't be nice to go out. Another example of men you don't know controlling you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7237366.stmDomestic violence soared on the night Scotland lost to Italy in the Euro 2008 championship qualifier, figures have suggested.Strathclyde Police revealed that between April and December last year there was an average of 92 domestic abuse incidents reported.However, on Saturday, 17 November, the figure went up to 126.SNP MSP for the Glasgow region, Sandra White, said the increase was largely fuelled by drink.The figures also showed that on the Saturday before the crunch football match, 89 domestic abuse incidents were reported and there were 90 on the Saturday after the qualifier.Almost two thirds - 64% - of the incidents on the day of the big game were alcohol-related.Ms White said: "This was a football match heralded and promoted as the biggest football feast of the century and one which the whole of Scotland looked forward to."Sadly, for so many, these figures clearly show that for them there was nothing to cheer about."She added: "With pubs showing alcohol sales during this period higher than Christmas and kick- off time at 5pm there is no doubt that the binge drinking culture of Scotland was evident."This cannot and should not be tolerated in any decent society and must be tackled."

Racism and violence against women

2008-02-03T05:28:00.003-08:00

I have just read a very distressing article in the Sunday Times here

It tells of a story of a 15 year old girl with learning disabilities being prostituted by her parents and mother in law (she has a mother in law though she can't really because she is 15). The article then goes on to discuss "honour killings" and the threat of honour killings. But is it me or does it just read like a diatribe against muslims as opposed to the horrendous organised sexual abuse of a young disabled woman. The Sunday Times when writing about prostitution never links it to the harm of women or the abuse of women and is quite happy to portray prostituted women as "happy hookers" or to re-tell the story of a high class prostitute or brainy students from Oxford "working" through college here.

However when talking about muslims they take a feminist and child protection stance yet somehow fail to talk about the perpetrators as sex offenders and prefers to talk about them as muslims. There is something wrong here and the comments part of the article are promoting racism.

Check out Southhall Black Sisters here

1% of domestic abuse reports goes to conviction

2008-02-02T16:01:00.001-08:00

Diversion and formal warnings are not prosecutions or convictions!!! A researcher once told me that more people have winnings on the lottery every week than people are convicted of domestic abuse offences.

Thousands of cases of domestic abuse in the North-east are going unpunished.Scottish Government figures have revealed more than 3,000 cases a year of domestic abuse have been reported to Grampian Police.But the only year with a record of how many convictions there were was 2005/06 - when only 39 people were punished by the courts for domestic abuse.According to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill there were 3,560 cases reported to Grampian Police in 2005/06, which fell to 3,137 in 2006/07.The number of cases had peaked in 2004/05 with 4,373.North-east Labour MSP Richard Baker, who got the information in a parliamentary question, claimed that more needed to be done to stop domestic abuse.He said: "It is wrong that thousands of cases of domestic abuse are going unpunished and women in particular may be going unprotected from violent partners."I would like the Scottish Government to look at how this can be tackled."A spokeswoman for Grampian Police said: "We take domestic abuse very seriously and encourage people to report it."The conviction rate is a matter for the Crown Office rather than the police, but it should be noted that in addition to prosecution there are other forms of disposal available such diversion, and formal warnings."

Public Trial - the rape of justice: Whose guilty?

2008-01-12T13:09:00.001-08:00

Plans are moving ahead for the Public Trial - The rape of justice: Who's guilty? We invite you to participate on 16 February. Please help circulate the email below. Your ideas and any other offers of help (including fundraising) will be greatly appreciated . Some of our recent comments to the media can be viewed at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7116336.stm and on YouTube - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DFH3bnCUtI0 you’ll see a clip from News 24. Keep an eye on www.womenagainstrape.net for more news and a poster to print off.

Women Against Rape 30^th anniversary

Summons to a Public Trial

The rape of justice: Who’s guilty?

16 February 2008 2-5 pm
Doors open at 1.30

Three decades ago, when it was still legal for a man to rape his wife, Women Against Rape, just formed, announced a rape trial with a difference: women were putting the government and its criminal justice system on trial for condoning and even encouraging rape.

Most people now support women’s right to say NO under any circumstance and at any point, and to get justice when that NO is ignored. Yet, the conviction rate for recorded rape is down to 5.7%. So once again we are putting the authorities on trial for persistently “letting rapists off the hook,” which denies women and girls justice and makes us all vulnerable.

Those in charge of justice still often hold women responsible for rape and sexual assault. It used to be short skirts and hitch-hiking that were to blame. Now it’s having too much to drink or having more than one partner or, as always, trusting the wrong man. The truth is that just being a woman – or a girl – in the wrong place at the wrong time is often enough to condemn us to rape.

But we have fought back. Increasingly women have reported rape and sexual assault, even when it was frightening, embarrassing and dangerous to do so, and even when the police didn’t want to know. We reported rape not only by strangers but by dates, husbands, partners, fathers, step-fathers, uncles, brothers, babysitters, employers, immigration officers, teachers, lecturers, carers, police, soldiers . . . And we have fought to defend our children even more than ourselves.

For 30 years, with little or no funding, Women Against Rape has been backing women and spearheading their demands for justice, by:

Speaking out against the authorities which don’t investigate, lose the evidence, misrepresent us, attack our character and conduct, accuse us of lying, put us on trial and even in prison.
Invading courts and private clubs where some of the most sexist judges hang out.
Pressing for changes in the law, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, the compensation system, and demanding that police or prosecutors who won’t do their jobs against rapists must be sacked.
Winning legislation which recognises rape in marriage as a crime, and sets at least some (though not enough) limits on raising women’s sexual history in court.
Fighting for rape survivors not to be detained, left destitute, or have our children torn from us, and to be granted the right to asylum.
Winning a private prosecution against a serial rapist after the CPS refused to prosecute – a test case that exposed the CPS.
Forcing the police and CPS to arrest and prosecute the white attacker of a Black Muslim mother; he was found guilty – another test case that exposed police inaction.
Winning compensation for many rape victims after they had been turned down.

BUT MOST RAPISTS STILL GET AWAY WITH IT!

What is the point of recommendations, complaints and appeals procedures, specialist police, prosecutors and judges, inspectorates, women in government, and more laws if those in charge of implementing them refuse over and over to do their job?

WE WANT THOSE IN CHARGE OF JUSTICE TO BE HELD TO ACCOUNT!

Have your say on 16 February 2008. Testify about your experience of dealing with sexual, domestic and other violence, what you did to try to get protection and justice and what response you got from each of the authorities. Male survivors of sexual violence are also welcome.

We will have dark glasses, masks and screens for anyone who wants to disguise their identity.

Venue:

Trinity United Reformed Church

Buck St, Camden, London NW1 8NJ

1 min Camden Tube; Accessible entrance, accessible toilet nearby;

Please book crèche in advance

GIVE EVIDENCE! BE THE JURY! FILL THE PUBLIC GALLERY!

M AK E SURE OUR VOICE FOR JUSTICE PREVAILS!

ALL WELCOME! SPREAD THE WORD!

www.womenagainstrape.net war@womenagainstrape.net

Tel. 020 7482 2496 voice & minicom

Swedish model for Prostitution coming to Britain?

2008-01-06T07:45:00.000-08:00

Later this month the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker will travel to Sweden to examine the country's prostitution laws. The government is considering adopting the Swedish model, where it is a criminal offence to buy sex. This has shamed many men, and led to fewer women working on the streets, but concerns remain over trafficking and driving the trade underground

The white envelope that arrived at the family home would have been innocuous enough, were it not for the emblem in the top left corner. For the married father-of-two to whom it was addressed the words Polismyndigheten i Stockholms län - Stockholm County police - were the first clue that his visit to a prostitute had not been as discreet as he might have imagined.

Unknown to him, police surveillance officers investigating a suspected pimping operation were watching from an unmarked car as he arrived in his Volvo at the apartment building in the suburb of Bromma on a summer's day in 2006. They filmed him going in at 5.47pm, and leaving at 6.10pm. Eight months later they wrote to him telling him he was suspected of buying sex. He denied it, claiming he and "Lia", the 25-year-old Estonian woman whose services he found on the internet, had done nothing but talk. But after being tried as part of a case against five men accused of procurement, he was found guilty and fined 15,000 kronor (£1,200).

The 52-year-old is one of more than 500 men convicted in Sweden under legislation introduced in 1999 criminalising the purchase or attempted purchase of sex, and decriminalising its sale, with the aim of reducing levels of prostitution and trafficking in women by cutting demand. The country views prostitution as a male violence against women and children, officially acknowledging it as a form of exploitation that is a barrier to gender equality. The Swedish term for a man who buys sex is torsk, meaning cod.

Many of those apprehended have families and well-paid jobs, authorities say. Four judges are among those convicted.

Although the options include a jail term of up to six months, all the men so far have received fines, which are based on earnings and whether the buyer has offended before. The largest penalty handed out was to a company director on a yearly salary of 1,440,000 kronor, who paid 70,000 kronor (£5,600). Three months later he was caught again. Supporters and critics agree street prostitution has been reduced. Agneta Borg, who has run Stockholm's social services project working with prostitutes for 11 years, estimates street prostitution is now 55% or 60% of what it was.

Trafficking

Government figures estimated there were around 2,500 native Swedes or permanent residents from abroad working as prostitutes in 1998, and only 1,500 in 2003. But the sale of sex off the streets, in brothels, strip clubs, massage parlours and hotel bars, remains largely unquantifiable, and it has soared online. It is there, according to police, that many trafficked women can be found.

The number of women trafficked to Sweden has risen, with those from Estonia, Russia, Poland and Lithuania most prominent. In 2003 it was estimated at 400-600; Kajsa Wahlberg, a detective inspector who is the country's national rapporteur on human trafficking, believes it could be around 1,000 today.

But trafficking has risen everywhere, she says, and the Swedish figure is nothing compared with its Scandinavian neighbours. Wahlberg estimates the figure in Norway and Denmark is around 6,000, and between 12,000 and 15,000 in Finland. All three countries have about half the population of Sweden.

Criminalising customers makes it harder for trafficking operations to operate, she says. "They have to be very discreet. They can only run two or three women at a time, and they have to keep moving around because neighbours complain to us." She rejects claims the law puts prostitutes at greater risk of violence by driving the sex industry underground.

"The biggest part of prostitution has always taken place indoors and underground. We don't get reports saying women in prostitution are being more violated than before. There are always risks of violence in prostitution." Most of the prosecuted men are caught during surveillance on suspected brothels because their evidence can be used to convict the pimps and traffickers.

In the last two years 77 trafficked women have been taken out of sex work in the Stockholm area after police operations. In many cases the man's wife or partner gets to the police-embossed envelope before he does and opens it to find a letter telling the recipient he is wanted for questioning, or is being fined. "We get telephone calls from men and women telling us we're destroying their marriage," says Ann Martin of the interrogation team in Stockholm. "The wives are terrified, frustrated and angry. They ask what this is about. We tell them to talk to their husbands."

On Malmskillnadgatan, the single street that forms Stockholm's traditional red light district, the complaint is that the law has made conditions tough.

Wahlberg says one might have seen around 40 prostitutes there 10 years ago: now only a few congregate. During one evening just 12 bundle themselves up against the cold to ply their trade, apparently with limited success.

One is politely rebuffed by a grey-haired man who passes through innocently wearing a festive red and white bobble hat. "He doesn't want to be my Santa Claus!" she says. Having settled in Sweden after coming from Venezuela in the early 90s and worked as a cleaner and a waitress she turned to prostitution two years ago. She is now 31. "It's difficult to find a job here and I need the money. There's a lot of competition now, and the customers are afraid," she said.

"My friend who worked here before the law changed said you could make 20,000 kronor in a night; now it is much lower than that. Everyone has goals. I would like to buy my own house in Sweden and get a normal job, some education, a profession."

An older woman fumbling for a lighter says she is fed up with everyone assuming her work is "tragic and miserable. It's like anything: some days it's OK and some days it stinks."

Sven-Axel Månsson, of the University of Malmo, says that for occasional sex buyers who get caught and prosecuted the shame can put them off, but for the habitual user it is less likely to act as a deterrent. Such men use internet forums to complain bitterly about Sweden's law. Some travel to Copenhagen, to avoid the risks of using prostitutes in their home country, Månsson says.

In Malmskillnadgatan the same handful of vehicles circle the block endlessly. Other men approach the shivering women on foot: some eye the scene from a distance. Marked police cars drive through slowly a couple of times, without stopping.

By 1.30am the street is almost still. Two men approach in a car and draw to a halt. One gets out: his eyes are bloodshot, his mouth droops and he is missing some bottom teeth. He speaks in Swedish and then English: "I am looking to meet some nice girls."

Once he realises he is not talking to a prostitute, he insists his motives are innocent. But he goes on: "If I have a woman at home she has to be very strong to feed me, because I love sex. She will be tired from working and she will not be able to feed me."

Girl raped in mcDonald's

2007-12-17T17:29:00.000-08:00

Hairdresser 'raped in MacDonald's toilets'http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Hairdresser-39raped-in-MacDonald39s-toilets39.3598212.jpBy Brian HorneA HAIRDRESSER told a trial she was raped when she went to fix her make-up inthe loo at McDonald's in Princes Street.Her attacker – a complete stranger – then tried to pin the blame for whatwas happening on her, the High Court in Edinburgh heard today.The 17-year-old said she only escaped when Ryan McPhee's girlfriend beganknocking on the door of the cubicle.McPhee, 20, shouted in reply: "I love you Amanda. She's raping me."McPhee, of Rosslyn Street, Kirkcaldy, denies rape, claiming the hairdresser– who was 16 at the time – consented to sex.The hairdresser told how she and a friend met up on the evening of July 29last year and headed into Edinburgh city centre where they went toMcDonald's in Princes Street.She said that before ordering any food she slipped to the toilet to touch upher make-up.The usual toilets on the upper floor were closed, so she slipped into adisabled toilet on the ground floor.As she got ready to leave, someone began knocking on the door. "I am justcoming", she said before unlocking the door and stepping out.McPhee was the man who confronted her, she told the trial. "He didn't sayanything but a couple of seconds later he tried to kiss me," said thehairdresser."I said 'I don't know you,'" she continued. "He said: 'My name is Ryan'."She said she tried to walk past him but he stood in her way. "He pushed meinto the toilet and put the lock on it."McPhee asked for oral sex, she claimed. "I told him to f*** off, I wasn'tlike that."She said he offered her "a tenner" then when she repeatedly refused, he saidhe would give her £70, opening his wallet to show her money inside.The hairdresser described how McPhee proceeded to rape her in spite of herprotests."Did something else happen while that was going on?" asked advocate deputeAlan Mackay, prosecuting."Someone knocked on the door. It was his girlfriend," the hairdresserreplied."He shouted 'Amanda, I love you' and 'she is raping me'".The hairdresser added: "I managed to move because he was distracted. He wastalking."She said she could not remember who opened the toilet door but thegirlfriend was just outside."My eyes were watering but I just stood there. I was just really upset."She said McPhee also left the toilet and the girlfriend began shouting.The hairdresser said she re-joined her pal and after McPhee left the burgerbar with his girlfriend she said: "He has just raped me."She said she started crying and, on the way home, her friend persuaded herto go to the police.Mr Mackay asked her: "Before you saw this man in the toilet, had you evermet him before?" The hairdresser told him: "Never."Solicitor advocate Iain Paterson, defending, suggested she could have pushedthe door and walked out. "I was scared. He looked like he was on something,"she said.The trial continues.

Women sue over sustained period of sexual abuse

2007-12-16T16:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the only way to fight back is to take out litigations! Well done those women

Mark Townsend, crime correspondent
Sunday December 16, 2007
The Observer

Sex slaves smuggled into Britain are set to receive millions of pounds for their 'pain and trauma' after a groundbreaking government decision to compensate victims of people trafficking.

The first payouts of more than £140,000 were made last week to four women who suffered a 'sustained period of sexual abuse'. Another 10,000 are estimated to be eligible under a new interpretation of Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority guidelines.

Authority officials told the London law firm Lovells, which is acting for a number of the victims, that it would 'officially recognise' the trauma experienced by thousands of women and children.

The development is likely to be politically controversial, with charges that offering help to trafficking victims could encourage illegal immigration.

The women who received £140,000 were smuggled from eastern Europe by British-based criminals using established international sex trafficking networks. One girl was illegally brought into the UK five years ago, aged 13. Another was trafficked in 2003 when she was 16. Both were kept prisoner by the same trafficking syndicate until they managed to escape at the start of last year.

According to lawyers, who have agreed to protect the identity of claimants, they were subject to 'forced prostitution, multiple rapes and beatings' while being held captive in the UK. In addition, their captors refused to give the victims money and warned they would be killed if they fled. The highest award was £62,000, the lowest £16,500.

The authority, which awards compensation to victims of violent crime, has agreed payments for 'false imprisonment and forced prostitution during the time of their imprisonment' though neither exists as an official category for damages. Sarah Johnson, of Lovells, said: 'This will serve as a precedent for other cases and we are delighted.'

The Poppy Project, which helps trafficked women after they have been rescued from their captors, hailed the payments as a 'tremendous breakthrough' and said that, in theory at least, thousands of women would qualify.

The women who have received compensation are understood not to have been deported. Victims will shortly win the right to stay in Britain temporarily after the government signalled its intent to ratify the Council of Europe's convention on action against trafficking.

Alongside the controversy of granting women the right to remain, even if only for a limited period, there are also concerns that traffickers might force women to make fraudulent compensation claims that would find their way to criminals. Although trafficking victims will only be required to make a police report - as opposed to assisting a full criminal investigation - to register a claim, experts said the fact they would require legal help as well as having to prove they had successfully escaped their traffickers would help prevent suspect claims.

Julie Barton, of the Poppy Project, said: 'Previously, women have received no financial support for them to start afresh or to address the terrible circumstances they have had to endure. Often they are forced to return vulnerable and traumatised to their home country without any support'.

The scale of sex trafficking is of increasing concern to police. Officially, the Home Office believes the number of illegal immigrants being sexually exploited at any one time is about 4,000. Investigators and support groups, however, calculate numbers are likely to be in excess of 10,000 and describe known cases as the 'tip of the iceberg'.

Even small towns are likely to have a brothel. Peterborough is a typical example. As little as three years ago, the Cambridgeshire town had two of them. This year the police have raided at least 48 in the town. Detectives describe such places as 'sex prisons'.

'The problem of trafficking is far greater than officially recognised and can no longer be considered a big city problem,' said Johnson of Lovells.

In most cases, trafficked women enter the UK 'overtly', using forged visas, false travel documents or visas obtained through corruption or deception, usually from their traffickers.

Barton confirmed her group was aware of a growing number of women who were being prosecuted carrying false documents given to them by organised criminals.

The development comes amid fresh evidence that victims are getting younger and that girls are being smuggled on demand by UK-based paedophile rings.

Barton said: 'Young girls from west Africa and China are, for instance, orphaned at a very young age and sexually abused. Once they hit puberty, they are being brought over here and sold into prostitution. A lot of young women, as young as eight, are sexually abused and then sold here.' One recent case involved a 15-year-old Nigerian girl who was abandoned in England when a member of an international paedophile ring dumped her after years of sexual abusing the teenager.

When found, she had been so badly abused and starved she was almost dead. Medical checks at the asylum centre in the north of England she was left outside revealed she was pregnant. Interviews with the victim established she had been kept for years by paedophiles, a number of whom are thought to be British, in a Belgian home where she was starved, tortured and repeatedly raped.

2007-12-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

Child-rape prosecutor suspended

December 11, 2007 - 9:19PM
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The prosecutor at the centre of the case in which six attackers escaped jail time for the gang rape of a 10-year-old in far-north Queensland has been stood aside, pending an investigation.
Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine tonight said the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions would investigate the conduct of Steve Carter, the senior legal officer responsible for Cape York matters in the DPP's Cairns chambers.
Court transcripts released today showed Mr Carter had described the 2006 incident as "childish experimentation" and consensual "in a general sense".
The child - who cannot be named - was gang-raped at the age of seven in Aurukun on Cape York in 2002, and was later put into foster care with a non-indigenous family in Cairns.
However, child safety officers in April 2006 returned her to Aurukun, where she was raped again at the age of 10.
Premier Anna Bligh today admitted the Child Safety Department had failed the girl.
"I think it is very important to understand, and I don't resile from the fact for one moment, the system clearly failed this little girl," Ms Bligh told reporters.
But she said the government took immediate action by disciplining the officers involved, moving the child, and improving child safety processes.
Ms Bligh could not give a reason for the officers' decision to return the girl to Aurukun, but said it should never have happened.
Cairns-based District Court judge Sarah Bradley did not record convictions against six teenage attackers and gave three others aged 17, 18 and 26 suspended sentences over the 2006 rape.
The state government is appealing the sentences and has ordered a review of around 75 sexual assault cases in Cape York over the past two years.
One senior child safety officer has been sacked and two others suspended for 12 months on full pay over the incident, but the two suspended officers are appealing the decision.
The girl is now in the care of the Child Safety Department away from Aurukun.
While the Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare declined to comment, her office today released transcripts of the court case.
They revealed that during the case, Mr Carter described the incident - in which the girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease - as "consensual sex".
"To the extent I can't say it was consensual in the legal sense, but in the other - in the general sense, the non-legal sense - yes, it was," Mr Carter told the court.
Mr Carter said the sex had been prearranged and the males had not forced themselves on the girl.
"... they're very naughty for doing what they're doing but it's really, in this case, it was a form of childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another," he said.
Mr Carter also told the court such incidents were not out of character in small, remote communities.
" ... children, females, have got to be - deserve - the same protection under the law in an Aboriginal or an indigenous community as they do in any other community," Mr Carter said.
"But sometimes things happen in a small community when children get together."
Hetty Johnston, founder of Bravehearts, said a judicial inquiry was needed.
"The prosecutor is there to defend the rights of the victims - that man is standing behind the wrong desk," Ms Johnston told AAP.
"This girl's life has been screwed up by a combination of the (child safety) department and the DPP."
AAP

Gang Rape cover up

2007-12-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
KBR Told Victim She Could Lose Her Job If She Sought Help After Being Raped, She Says
By BRIAN ROSS, MADDY SAUER & JUSTIN ROOD
Dec. 10, 2007—
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.
"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."
Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.
"I said, 'Dad, I've been raped. I don't know what to do. I'm in this container, and I'm not able to leave,'" she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.
"We contacted the State Department first," Poe told ABCNews.com, "and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen" -- from her American employer.
Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones' camp, where they rescued her from the container.
According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally."
Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
A spokesperson for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security told ABCNews.com he could not comment on the matter.
Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.
Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.
"It's very troubling," said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. "The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don't have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice."
Congressman Poe says neither the departments of State nor Justice will give him answers on the status of the Jones investigation.
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
Asked what reasons the departments gave for the apparent slowness of the probes, Poe sounded frustrated.
"There are several, I think, their excuses, why the perpetrators haven't been prosecuted," Poe told ABC News. "But I think it is the responsibility of our government, the Justice Department and the State Department, when crimes occur against American citizens overseas in Iraq, contractors that are paid by the American public, that we pursue the criminal cases as best as we possibly can and that people are prosecuted."
Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now. But Jones' former employer doesn't want this case to see the inside of a civil courtroom.
KBR has moved for Jones' claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.
In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones' claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather, a private arbitrator would decide Jones' case. In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.
In his interview with ABC News, Rep. Poe said he sided with Jones.
"Air things out in a public forum of a courtroom," said Rep. Poe. "That's why we have courts in the United States."
In her lawsuit, Jones' lawyer, Todd Kelly, says KBR and Halliburton created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere at the company barracks which put her and other female employees at great risk.
"I think that men who are there believe that they live without laws," said Kelly. "The last thing she should have expected was for her own people to turn on her."
Halliburton, which has since divested itself of KBR, says it "is improperly named" in the suit.
In a statement, KBR said it was "instructed to cease" its own investigation by U.S. government authorities "because they were assuming sole responsibility for the criminal investigations."
"The safety and security of all employees remains KBR's top priority," it said in a statement. "Our commitment in this regard is unwavering."
Since the attacks, Jones has started a nonprofit foundation called the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which is dedicated to helping victims who were raped or sexually assaulted overseas while working for government contractors or other corporations.
"I want other women to know that it's not their fault," said Jones. "They can go against corporations that have treated them this way." Jones said that any proceeds from the civil suit will go to her foundation.
"There needs to be a voice out there that really pushed for change," she said. "I'd like to be that voice."
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Pig Farmer found guilty of murdering 6 women

2007-12-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

Pig farmer convicted of murders

A pig farmer accused of being Canada's worst serial killer has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of six women.
Robert Willie' Pickton was on trial for the first six of 26 murder charges for the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighbourhood.
Pickton, 58, was found guilty of the murders of Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury and Georgina Papin. He will be sentenced tomorrow.
The defence acknowledged that their remains were found on Pickton's farm outside Vancouver, but denied he was responsible for their deaths.
Two sisters of victim Georgina Papin screamed "No!" when the jury foreman first stood up and said "not guilty" on first-degree murder.
But later said they were pleased he was convicted on the second-degree charge.
Pickton listened to the verdict with his head bowed and later smirked.
He will receive life in prison and will not be eligible for parole for at least 10 years.
The jury had no recommendation on whether to extend that 10-year period.
The jury of seven men and five women took 10 days to reach a verdict. They had the option of finding Pickton guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter or not guilty on any of the six counts.
Second-degree murder is a lesser charge that means a murder was not planned.
First-degree murder, which means a murder was planned, also carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison and does not offer parole eligibility for 25 years.
Family members and friends gathered for a candlelight vigil outside the courthouse in New Westminster, British Columbia, after the verdicts. A poem and a song written about the women was played. Some sobbed.
Publication date 10/12/07

Wife killer Nat Fraser back behind bars

2007-12-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

CONVICTED wife killer Nat Fraser was dramatically sent back to jail today after spending more than 18 months on bail.
The 48-year-old was ordered back behind bars when his appeal against conviction came to an end this afternoon.

He will remain in prison until judges issue a written judgment on his appeal, which could take several weeks.
Fraser is challenging his conviction for murdering his estranged wife Arlene more than nine years ago.
Three senior judges at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh made the unexpected decision after the Crown asked for his bail not to be continued.
Mrs Fraser was 33 when she disappeared from her home in New Elgin, Moray, on April 28 1998. Her body has never been found.
He was jailed for life in 2003 but was freed in May last year, pending his full appeal, after the court heard the grounds of appeal in his case were “compelling”.
Members of Mrs Fraser’s family, who have attended every day of his four-week appeal, spoke of their surprise at the move today.
This article: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1907032007
Last updated: 06-Dec-07 13:49 GMT

Trafficked women being abused in Edinburgh

2007-12-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Seven women in city victims of trafficking
SEVEN women in Edinburgh have been identified as human trafficking victims as part of a UK-wide police operation.
Most of the women uncovered since Pentameter 2 began on October 2 were from the Far East - mainly Thailand and Malaysia.
The majority had travelled to Britain to pay off a family debt and ended up working in the Capital's sex industry.
In one case reported today, a Romanian woman was repeatedly raped by human traffickers on the way to London, before being taken to work in an Edinburgh brothel.
Pentameter 2, the UK's biggest ever human trafficking operation, is now being extended into the New Year.
Meanwhile, a photo gallery to raise awareness about the issue has been set up at Edinburgh Airport.
It is hoped the Slave Britain exhibition will also help airport workers spot signs and alert authorities.

2007-12-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

by Iain Lundy Glasgow Evening Times
THE growth in Glasgow's night-time economy and lap dancing culture were today blamed for the horrific toll of rapes and sex attacks on women.
Chief Inspector Brian Connel said a lack of a co-ordinated transport strategy when the pubs and clubs come out is making the city a more dangerous place and leaving women vulnerable to attack.
He also agreed with leading women's groups that lap dancing and television images were adding to the problem.
City's 2007 record of rape shameFEBRUARY A 15-year-old girl was raped in Ferguslie Park, Paisley. A 19-year-old man was arrested and has appeared at Paisley Sheriff Court.
APRIL An 18-year-old was raped while waiting for an early-morning bus to work in Cross Arthurlie Street at Barrhead, East Renfrewshire. A man grabbed her and dragged her into a lane. A 33-year-old man was arrested and has appeared at Paisley Sheriff Court.
Reader PollDoes lapdancing encourage sex attacks?
Yes33.2%
No59.4%
Don't know7.4%
JUNE A woman was raped in Glasgow city centre just yards from clubbers making their way home. The 30-year-old was grabbed from behind and dragged into a lane. She was sitting on a wall at the BP garage in Elmbank Street, between Bath Lane and Elmbank Crescent just moments after leaving a club on Sauchiehall Street. No-one has been arrested.
JULY A dreadlocked gang of four raped a woman in Glasgow's West End. The 30-year-old mum-of-one was attacked while walking her dog in Yorkhill. The four were described as being of AfroCaribbean appearance. The victim was pushed to the ground and held down by two attackers, while a third, who was more than 6ft tall with waist-length dreadlocks, carried out the first assault. The three other men then also raped her in the square, which is next to wine bars, art galleries and tenement flats. No arrests have been made.
AUGUST A teenage girl was dragged off a busy street and raped in a daylight attack. The 16-year-old was walking along Dowanfield Road, Cumbernauld, when a man dragged her into shrubbery near Our Lady's High School and raped her. A 27-year-old man was arrested.
AUGUST A woman reported being raped in Glasgow. The 38-year-old said she tried to flag down drivers as she was chased by her attacker but nobody stopped to help her and she was dragged into bushes near Glasgow Royal Infirmary. A man, 39, was arrested in connection with the crime.Mr Connel spoke out as new figures obtained by the Evening Times revealed there were 192 rapes reported to Strathclyde Police between January and the end of July this year - only one fewer than the same period last year.
Detection rates rose slightly with 128 solved compared with 124 last year.
The number of serious sex attacks dropped from 54 to 41 - but only 16 have been detected this year as opposed to 30 in 2006.
Mr Connel, Strathclyde Police's force crime prevention officer, called for more action to get people safely and quickly home after a night out - and pleaded with young people to be more responsible on safety issues.
He said: "It is easy for a young person to end up with a stranger on a night out, especially after too much alcohol.
"There are thousands upon thousands of people in the city centre at the weekend and the transport is just not sufficient to get them all out. It is getting better but a lot has to be done.
"I don't think the culture helps and people are quite prepared to be irresponsible. It is all about enjoyment without a thought about what the consequences are.
"We are not asking folk to regulate their lives to the nth degree - but think a bit ahead, have money on your phone, don't get lost, stay with your friends. It is really simple stuff.
"When people are under the influence their skills in dealing with these kind of things are decreased dramatically."
The statistics come after a string of rapes and sexual assaults on women in and around Glasgow in the last few weeks - including the terrifying gang-rape of a 30-year-old woman near Yorkhill Hospital.
Women's groups believe many more victims are unwilling or too afraid to tell the police and the true picture is more grim than statistics suggest.
Diane Travers, personal safety tutor with Glasgow-based Wise Women, said she was concerned about what she called the "lapdance culture" in Glasgow city centre.
She added: "Our current culture of lapdancing clubs is worrying, especially hearing so many young men talk about it.
"There is a connection between lapdancing - which is sexual exploitation of women - and rape.
"It is saying that women are there to be watched and used and that they are there for entertainment."
Ms Travers claimed the statistics were the tip of the iceberg because so many women who were raped by someone they knew did not report the attacks.
She said: "It is easier to report an attack by a stranger but they are less inclined to talk about a friend, partner, boyfriend or someone in their family.
"It is very chilling to realise rapists are people who appear like normal everyday guys that we talk to in the pub or at home."
Mr Connel agreed lapdance culture and many television images were adding to the problem.
He said: "It is all about exploitation and it is all about behaviour I would say is unacceptable but is creating the wrong type of role models."
Sandy Brindley, national co-ordinator of Rape Crisis Scotland, said the attitude of rape perpetrators had changed little over the years.
"There are prehistoric attitudes to rape and sexual assault in this city that we are having to challenge," she said.
"You wouldn't think it was 2007. Things should be much more enlightened but it feels like it is the same attitude since the 1970s when rape crisis centres had to be set up in the first place."

Trial 'not fair' says Fraser team

2007-12-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

We'll see what happens!!!

Fraser's defence has featured the issue of his wife's ringsNat Fraser's defence team has rubbished claims a jury would still have found him guilty had evidence about his wife Arlene's rings been available at trial.
Fraser, 48, was jailed for life in 2003 after being found guilty of murdering his wife.
Her body was never found after she went missing in Elgin, Moray, in 1998.
Peter Gray QC said fresh evidence of two police officers cast doubt on the Crown's main theory about the murder, meaning it was not a fair trial.
The prosecution case had included claims that Fraser placed Arlene's engagement, wedding and eternity rings in the bathroom of her house several days after she vanished.
Evidence has since emerged that two police officers may have seen the rings in Arlene's house shortly after she disappeared.
'Unusual case'
Fraser's defence claims he suffered a miscarriage of justice because the advocate depute in the trial made Arlene's rings the "cornerstone" of his case.
The Crown has argued that the evidence against Fraser was "overwhelming".

Arlene Fraser went missing from Elgin in 1998
The Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh earlier heard John Beckett QC, for the Crown, claim the officers' evidence would have helped the prosecutor.
However, Mr Gray said it was "wholly artificial" for appeal judges to consider what the Crown might have done had they been aware of the evidence.
"If the cornerstone of the Crown case has been on an inaccurate premise then, in my submission, it is extremely difficult to see how the appellant can have had a fair trial," said Mr Gray.
"This is a very unusual case because the Crown proceeded on a basis on which it now recognises was inaccurate, and in the context of a fresh evidence appeal it would be wholly artificial to start looking at what may have happened if the Crown had presented the case in a different way, because that didn't happen."
The judges will deliver a decision on the appeal later

2007-12-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

Advocating for women who experience domestic abuse can allow women to look at the decisions they make in their lives - Scotland needs independent advocates.

Pioneering scheme cuts domestic violence
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 03 December 2007
A pioneering scheme to tackle domestic violence, which affects 1.5 million women each year in the UK, has cut the incidence of assault and injury to women by two thirds, according to the first independent evaluation of its impact.
The £1m scheme, half funded by the Home Office, uses special case workers to co-ordinate services aimed at keeping the victim safe in her own home and has been so successful that it is being rolled out across the country.
Every year more than 100 women die at the hands of their partners, and 150,000 suffer physical or sexual assault, psychiatric harm, or are driven to suicide. More than 600,000 report incidents of abuse to the police, but thousands more suffer in silence.
The new approach involves identifying women at highest risk, using a 20-point checklist of risk factors, and appointing independent domestic violence advocates (IDVAs) to support them. The advocates co-ordinate monthly meetings of local services to protect the victims and help them to rebuild their lives.
Results from the first eight pilot areas to be evaluated showed that after six months, in at least 90 out of 140 cases (65 per cent), the violence had stopped. The monthly Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (Maracs) have dealt with 8,000 cases this year, which is set to double to 15,000 next year. Research shows that 70 per cent of women who have been through the Marac process were still safe six months later.
The scheme is run by a charity, Co-ordinated Action on Domestic Abuse (CAADA), set up by Diana Barran, a former hedge fund manager, in 2004.
Ms Barran has the enthusiastic backing of Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, and was last week awarded a Beacon prize, one of Britain's top awards for philanthropy.
She said: "The research shows that the model works. When we talk about violence in this context we are talking about a knife being held to a victim's throat. There is nothing pink and fluffy about this.
"For too long victims of domestic abuse have been chucked from pillar to post because it is a problem that crosses so many boundaries – police, health, housing, social services. Women's refuges have kept victims safe, but lives have also been lost because women didn't want to go into them, or they were full or too far away.
"Our objective is to keep women in their homes but safe and supported. We aim to provide a GP-style of service so that wherever you go for help you know exactly what you are going to get. Currently victims of domestic abuse who go to a local agency get a completely different response in one area from the next."
A national training programme will have 360 advocates in place around the UK by the spring, enough to deal with 30,000 high-risk cases annually.
The largest project is at Worthing, West Sussex, where 10 IDVAs are attached to the accident and emergency departments of Worthing and Crawley hospitals. Detection of domestic violence rose from one case a year to one a day after A&E staff began routinely asking women how they were injured. The scheme is being rolled out to hospitals at Chichester and Haywards Heath, and the number of advocates more than doubled to 25.
Ms Barran said: "IDVAs are the catalyst that make everything else work. We estimate the cost of providing a national service at £50m, which would save £5 for every £1 spent. But it is the biggest human need for which it is most difficult to raise money."
'You don't have to put up with it' - Tessa, victim
Tessa was with her five-year-old daughter, Maisie, when her partner came at her in the living room with a knife.
"He had attacked me lots of times but this time I thought he was going to kill me. He picked me up and flung me over the sofa because I wouldn't go to a party with him. I tried to protect myself and he stabbed me through the hand. I went to casualty and I told them I had had an accident cutting meat – even though I am a vegetarian. That's the problem – there was no help so you tell lies. You put up and shut up."
She had met Roy, a plumber who played rugby and boxed for charity, in a pub in Manchester in 1995. She said: "It was an on-off relationship, full of violence and nastiness. I did try to get away, but he used to turn up at my house and I couldn't get rid of him. He was on drugs and would smash the windows to get in."
The police did nothing and the domestic violence helpline was useless, she said. Then social workers threatened to take her children into care. "That was really scary. I felt trapped – there was nothing I could do."
Eventually her local Women's Aid branch put her in touch with an advocate, trained by CAADA, who organised police protection, helped her to start court proceedings and found her a new place to live. "They really helped me. I would not have had the go in me to carry on without them. I want people to realise that you can get out of situations like mine. You don't have to put up with it."

Men believe they can get away with rape, claims Cameron

2007-12-03T16:19:00.000-08:00

First time for everything! Never agreed with David Cameron before - but in fairness he is stating the obvious. We need to do something about these rape convictions, it affectively means that rape in Scotland is legal unless you totally step over the line - the godess only knows what the line is but 95% of reported rapes obviously don't make it!

Men believe they can get away with rape, claims Cameron
GERRI PEEV POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
gpeev@scotsman.com)
MEN in Britain believe they can get away with rape, David Cameron claimed yesterday as he accused the Labour government of presiding over a moral collapse in society.
The Conservative Party leader pledged extra help for victims and stronger punishments for rapists, calling for sex education to include emphasis on the need for consent.

While the figures he cited for England and Wales showed a conviction rate of just 5.1 per cent of all complainants, in Scotland it is 1 percentage point lower. The Scottish Government has already pledged a new Sexual Offences Bill to tackle the low conviction rate.
In a speech to the Conservative Women's Organisation in London, Mr Cameron called for a cultural change. "Studies have shown that as many as one in two young men believe there are some circumstances when it's OK to force a woman to have sex," he said. "To my mind, this is an example of moral collapse."
The Tory leader warned that society has become increasingly "sexualised" over the past decade, during which time treating women as sex objects has become viewed as "cool". He also called for compulsory sex education in schools to drive home the message that sex without consent is a criminal offence.
"And what about when the perpetrator is convicted?" he continued. "The average custodial sentence handed to rapists in England and Wales has fallen ... to around 80 months. Given all this, we have a situation where rapists think they can get away with it, while victims wonder what's the point of pursuing the criminal process."
Citing the case of Lindsay Armstrong, 16, who committed suicide after seeing her attacker convicted of rape in a trial at which she was asked to show the court the underwear she had been wearing at the time of the assault, Mr Cameron said more support was also vital.
The Labour Party hit back at criticism of the low conviction rates for rape. A spokesman pointed out that the Conservatives - including Mr Cameron and David Davis, the shadow home secretary - had voted against allowing police to take DNA samples from a person arrested for a recordable offence as part of the Criminal Justice Bill. Since the law came into force in 2004, 90 rapists had been convicted, the spokesman said.
Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister, insisted the government was taking action, including providing new centres to provide medical care and counselling to victims, putting in place specialist police officers and prosecutors and trialling the use of "independent sexual violence advisers" in 38 areas.
Sally Ireland, senior legal officer at the campaign group Justice warned against engineering conviction rates upwards by making trials unfair.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said it was awaiting a report from the Scottish Law Commission before it published a final sexual offences bill. "No victim should be dissuaded from coming forward because they fear that the law is unclear or that their experience will not be taken seriously," he said.
SHAMING FIGURES
SCOTLAND has one of the world's lowest conviction rates for rape, a statistic which has been repeatedly condemned by campaigners.
Out of 975 serious sex crimes reported to the police last year, only 38 - or one in 25 - culminated in guilty verdicts. This translates to a conviction rate of 3.9 per cent.
The all-time low compares with a 5 per cent conviction rate in 2005.
The number of reported rape cases has soared by 300 per cent over the past three decades. In 1997-98, there were 596 rapes reported, while in 2004-5 the number was 900.
Rapists are also almost ten times more likely to be found guilty in some parts of Scotland compared with others, according to figures released earlier this year.
Grampian had a conviction rate of less than 1 per cent, while at the other end of the scale the neighbouring Northern Constabulary area achieved 8.7 per cent.

Family to sue SPS over murder of their Catherine Thomson

2007-12-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

John Campbell was released from prison on home leave without a risk assessment, John Campbell when on leave from Castle Huntly stabbed Catherine Thomson 25 times. When will the authorities start to understand about risk assessment, the Sheriff's findings were that the prison staff were not trained in risk assessment and they just 2rubber stamped" the risk assessment. i do not support the American suing culture but how else will agencies like the SPS learn, if they know they will face litigation then risk assessments will be essential and staff will be trained to undertake them. - check out the report from the Court -http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_11_07_millarthomson.pdf

The family of a woman killed by a prisoner on unsupervised leave from an open jail are reportedly intending to sue prison bosses.

Catherine Thomson, 26, was stabbed in the jugular vein at her family home in Moodiesburn, North Lanarkshire.

John Campbell attacked Ms Thomson - his brother's girlfriend - while on leave from Castle Huntly prison in 2005.

A fatal accident inquiry ruled that a risk assessment should have been carried out before he was given leave.

Sheriff Thomas Millar ruled Ms Thomson's death could have been avoided.

Campbell was arrested and later plunged to his death from an upper gallery at Glasgow's Barlinnie prison, in an apparent suicide.

Lawyer Cameron Fyfe said Ms Thomson's family were taking legal action against the Scottish Prison Service (SPS).

What the family want is for the prison service to pay for the mistake that they made

Cameron Fyfe

Mr Fyfe, who is acting for the family, said: "We take the view that the determination from the sheriff gives us the basis to proceed on the basis that the prison service was negligent in allowing Campbell out without a proper risk assessment.

"The family really don't care about the compensation money, they haven't even asked me how much they could get.

"What they want, in their words, is for some justice to come out of this and for the prison service to pay for the mistake that they made."

Campbell, 34, was serving an eight-year sentence for two charges of assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement when he was allowed out of prison on short unsupervised leave.

He had initially been placed on high supervision level when he was sentenced in August 2002.

In 2004 his supervision level was wrongly reduced to low, which meant he was eligible for unsupervised home leave when he was transferred to Castle Huntley prison.

Sheriff Millar found that officers there had assumed Campbell was of low risk to the community because he was on a low supervision level.

He added they failed to carry out a fresh risk assessment on Campbell because they assumed one had been carried out elsewhere and were simply "rubber-stamping" it.

Mother and her five children buried after dying in a blaze in County Tyrone

2007-12-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

The police suspect Arthur McElhill of setting fire to his house and killing himself, his partner Lorraine McGovern and their five children - Caroline, Sean, Belinda, Clodagh and James. May the family find peace

Updated:16:45, Saturday December 01, 2007

Children weep for lost classmates

Several hundred people attended requiem mass at the Sacred Heart Church in Northern Ireland's County Tyrone town, but numbers were nowhere near what had been expected.

Arthur McElhill, 39, his partner Lorraine McGovern, 30 and their children - Caroline, 13, Sean, seven, Bellina, four, Clodagh, 18 months and James nine month - died together when fire engulfed their three-bedroom, end of terrace house.

Police are treating the deaths as murder and suspect Mr McElhill of starting the fire after they found petrol had been sprinkled around the house and set alight.

The McElhill and McGovern families disagreed for a fortnight over where the family should be buried.

Eventually it was decided a single service would be held for the family but that Mr McElhill would be buried separately from his family.

He will be buried in Ederney, County Fermanagh, his partner will be buried with the children at Corlough, County Cavan, in the Irish Republic.

Speaking during the service, parish priest Monsignor Joseph Donnelly referred back to the Omagh bombing saying a community may have experience of tragedy but could never become accustomed to it.

He said: "To lose an entire family unit in one instance is unimaginable. It is a devastation for the families immediately connected. It is a loss so total that words fail to describe the immensity of the events."

Looking down at the five white coffins of the children - each with a single white carnation upon it - and flanked by the coffins of their parents, he added: "The visual impact of what lies before us leaves us in no doubt about the horrible reality."

Children from St Conor's primary school, next door to the fire blackened house in Lammy Crescent, and where two of the children were pupils, formed a guard of honour as the coffins were carried from the church.

Sombre faced, many wept for their lost classmates. So too did the pupils from the Sacred Heart college which the oldest child attended.

Chief Constable Vows To Blitz Wife Beaters

2007-12-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

At long last someone is getting that domestic abuse is about the abusive man - why do the women and children have to leave and live in fear? When a man is charged with domestic abuse and is bailed to stay away from his ex-partner he needs to stay in a bail hostel - if he is a persistent offender he needs to be remanded. Perpetrators need to be held responsible and accountable for their behaviour as it is their problem - there will need to be a huge injection into funding it is imperative as Lily Greenan says in this article that women and children's safety is paramount. Best of luck Cheif Constable House - hope you can win the Glasgow Council over to your way of thinking and convince the Scottish Government to pay for it. Working with men costs quite a lot of money and their needs to be parity for the victims - the women and children, they need resources too. But Another Witch to Burn is behind this initiative, hope it happens..

Dec 2 2007 By Norman Silvester

Husbands Face Time In Hostels To Keep Them Away From Victims

WIFE-BEATERS will be forced to live in hostels far from their victims in a domestic violence crackdown.

The measure was revealed by Strathclyde Police's new chief constable, Steve House, yesterday.

He is making domestic violence a priority after taking charge of Scotland's biggest force and says it is wrong for battered women and their children to be forced to hide in refuges.

Mr House wants to turn the tables and put the wife-beaters there instead.

The dad of three said: "Domestic violence is on the increase. A woman will be the victim an average of 20 times before she calls the police.

"Normally, when a woman is the victim of domestic violence, she ends up in a refuge.

"I would like to see more refuges and hostels for women. But the last thing you want is the victim and her children taken out of the home because of the disruption to schooling and family life.

"We would prefer the accused be made to go to a hostel and the victim stay in the family home."

Mr House revealed men who assault their wives and partners will be routinely kept in custody until they can be taken to court.

They will be sent to live in hostels - paid for by the police and local authorities - until their trial.

The Glasgow-born officer added: "An average of 45 per cent of attacks in the home happen in front of a child and that child will often go on to commit acts of crime and violence.

"Evidence shows teenagers who commit violence are usually from homes where they have seen domestic violence."

The hostel plan is part of a raft of measures which include allowing police to accept third-party reporting of domestic violence, where terrified victims won't come forward. The moves also propose the creation of "Cocoon Watch" schemes, where neighbours are encouraged to report suspected domestic violence to police.

Victims will also be given panic alarms and their attackers forced to attend anger-management classes.

The plans have been welcomed by women's rights campaigners and politicians.

Jean Cumming from support agency Crisis said: "I'm delighted the chief constable is introducing the measures and hope every other force will follow suit.

"We've been campaigning to encourage authorities to take more radical action to tackle domestic abuse because it has such a knock-on effect across society.

"Providing bail hostels is particularly welcome as it will give an abused family a breathing space."

The scheme will be similar to the estimated 100 bail hostels in England, where about 2000 alleged offenders await trail.

'The last thing you want is the victim and kids moved from home'

Steve House

SUNDAY EMAIL

n.silvester@sundaymail.co.uk

2007-12-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

Rape inquiry police make arrest
Police investigating a rape in a North Lanarkshire village have arrested a man.
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly attacked in Banton, near Kilsyth, on Tuesday night while she was out jogging.
A 31-year-old man has been arrested and is being detained in custody in connection with the alleged incident, a Strathclyde Police statement said.
The man is expected to appear in court on Monday.

Aberdeen fan gang raped in Madrid

2007-12-01T05:32:00.000-08:00

An example of how rape is men's violence towards women and not sexual - I don't follow football or fully understand what is happening with the football violence but the "alleged" gang rape of this woman football fan stood out for me.

The female victim, who is understood to be in her late twenties, was reportedly raped by a group of Spanish men as she made her way back to the city-centre hotel where she had been staying. She is believed to have become separated from friends minutes before the attack on Wednesday, the night before the European fixture.

A spokesman for the British Consulate confirmed they had assisted a Scottish woman in connection with an alleged gang rape.

But while Scottish fans have accused Spanish police of heavyhanded tactics, Grampian Police believe known troublemakers who associate themselves with the Pittodrie club travelled to the game with the intention of causing violence.

However, there were no reports of any arrests amongst the Aberdeen supporters.

An estimated 6,000 Aberdeen fans are believed to have made the trip, with only 3,000 tickets officially allocated.

At least one fan, Ian Bremner, a father of two, was taken to hospital during clashes in the Spanish capital.

Friends of the 38-year-old project manager, originally from Buckie, Moray, who now works in Denmark, claimed yesterday he was repeatedly struck over the head by police armed with batons as he made his way to Vicente Calderón stadium for the game.

Lindsay Bartlet, 45, who was with Mr Bremner at the time, said: "It was way over the top for the police to charge at us like that; it was completely unprovoked."

It is understood Mr Bremner was due to be discharged from the Clinico San Carlos Madrid Hospital last night.

John Morgan, Aberdeen FC's head of security, said he witnessed a child of about ten being hit with a baton, and also saw women being struck.

Superintendent Adrian Watson, of Grampian Police, said: "There was a clash between fans and the Spanish police, but the trouble was limited to a small number of troublemakers. This small group travelled to Madrid with the intention of causing trouble."

Four Grampian Police officers were in Madrid to assist the Spanish police. Mr Watson said they were now making efforts to obtain CCTV footage of the violence.

Dave Macdermid, a spokesman for Aberdeen FC, said the club was to write to Uefa.

He said: "There is no doubt there were problems with violence, but it was limited to a small number of people.

"Most of the fans behaved impeccably and I would like to thank them for that. Unfortunately, there was a small number that did not and that is where the violence stemmed from."

The Spanish media reported yesterday that at least 17 people had suffered injuries during the trouble, which saw riot police try to control the crowd after flares, bottles and other objects were thrown.

One Aberdeen supporter told of fights in the stand and violent clashes outside of the ground.

Time For Women To Stop Fearing The Night

2007-11-30T15:32:00.000-08:00

Women’s Voice

Pam Currie

YESTERDAY a newspaper billboard stopped me in my tracks outside Central Station. “Body in garden is Vicky Hamilton”, it read.
Another day, another dead girl - given the high-profile Angelika Kluk murder trial last year, this case will no doubt hold the media spotlight for a few days or weeks before slipping back down the news agenda.
I didn’t know Vicky Hamilton, but that doesn’t matter now. She’s lain dead for over a decade, buried in an unmarked grave hundreds of miles from the West Lothian town she disappeared from in 1991.
Vicky was the same age as me and we grew up some 20 miles apart, in similar small towns in the East of Scotland.
It could have been me standing at a bus stop that evening, eating chips. It could have been my sister, it could have been any one of my school friends.
It didn’t matter - she was simply a nameless, faceless young woman. Any young woman would do.
After her disappearance, the family and police ran a high profile appeal for information.
Vicky’s face appeared on posters, on leaflets in the hairdressers, on milk cartons.
A stark warning to girls and women in Bathgate, in Bonnyrigg, anywhere - you’re not safe.
Stay at home. Don’t talk to strangers. These streets are not your streets.
This case, of course, will have a particularly salacious appeal to the media - an innocent schoolgirl, pictured immaculate in her uniform - an evil paedo, the ‘bad man’ we had already learned to fear.
But the bottom line is that we live in a society where, as Susan Brownmiller wrote in her seminal book on rape in 1975, “all men keep all women in a state of fear”.
We live in a society where, despite the revulsion we feel for men like Tobin, men’s violence against women is normalized and accepted as inevitable.
Murders like Vicky Hamilton’s will attract media coverage because she fits the profile of a ‘good’ victim.
If she was Black, or a sex worker, or hitch-hiking, or in some way ‘asking for it’, then it would be a different story.
Ditto the respectable family man who beats his wife and abuses his daughters - he’s not the bogeyman hiding in the park, to be profiled on Crimewatch and splashed across the tabloids.
Strip away the media spin and it’s the same story: man murders woman. Not, as David Cameron would have us believe, because of the ‘moral slide’ of society, but because we live in a patriarchal society where unequal power relations are about more than just class relations - they are about men’s power over women.
That’s a problem that can’t ever be solved by simply locking up the ‘bad’ men, or even bringing back the death penalty.
It’s a problem that needs a transformation of society - so that women are as free to stand at bus stops at night as men are; so that for once in our lives, we can be free from fear.

Rest in Peace Vicky hamilton

2007-11-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

GEMMA FRASER (gfraser@edinburghnews.com)

MURDERED schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton was finally laid to rest at an emotional service today, nearly 17 years after she disappeared.

Family and friends gathered to remember Vicky, who was 15-years old, when she was last seen waiting for a bus in Bathgate in February 1991.

Her remains were uncovered at a terraced house in Margate, Kent, nearly three weeks ago.

An eerie silence fell on the picturesque Redding Parish Church, near Falkirk, when Vicky’s coffin arrived, draped in flowers at around 11am.

On one side the flowers were arranged to say “Vicky”, and on the other to say “sister”.

Michael Hamilton arrived in the first of the family hearses, accompanied by other family members. Vicky’s siblings Sharon, Lindsay and Lee, arrived shortly afterwards in a separate hearse and entered the church arm-in-arm, each carrying a red rose.

Inside, the Rev Geoffrey Smart said a “battle against evil” had been lost on the day Vicky died.

He described Vicky’s murder as a “cruel, callous and evil act.”

He said: “We come to remember Vicky as she was – a young girl with her whole life ahead of her, who was taken from us by this terrible act of evil.

The church was completely packed out with mourners, with all the pews filled and people standing in every available space.

Vicky’s siblings Sharon, Lee and Lindsay were sitting together at the front of the church. Her fatherMichael was at the front on the other side of the aisle.

The church organist was playing a version of I Will Always Love You, by Whitney Houston. The minister continued: “Vicky was a much loved daughter, sister, granddaughter, half sister and niece.

“She has been sorely missed by all these relatives all and the rest of her family and friends over these years.”
Vicky’s family said her disappearance had “ripped the family apart”, but were comforted by the fact they could now lay her to rest.

The minister added: “Her family were robbed of seeing Vicky grow up as all their hopes and expectations for Vicky’s future were taken from them.

“The judicial process will go on and help give some peace to all who mourn Vicky’s tragic and distressing death.

“As Christians, we are meant to have a forgiving spirit, yet forgiveness is a two-way street and we have seen no signs of contrition either for the evil deed or for putting a family through the hell of these last 16 years of uncertainty, worry and fear, which also caused the untimely death of Vicky’s mum.

“So today all we can do is thank God that throughout this time of uncertainty and fear Vicky was safely in His loving hands.

“Yet before this Vicky was forced to face something that nobody should ever have to face, especially a young, vulnerable teenage girl.”

However, he added: “We must not dwell on this today, but try to see beyond its darkness and focus on the light of our Christian belief, which tells us that Vicky is safe and secure in heaven, together with her granny and her mum, in order that God’s gracious love might take from us any feelings which might undermine our own lives.

“When we are able to do this we stop such evil from gaining any kind of victory over us, as we unite in God’s love.”

A young man dressed in full military uniform and ceremonial white gloves stood outside the church to greet mourners, including Vicky’s uncle Eric Hamilton.

Mourners laid wreaths and flowers on the grass outside before entering the church while people stopped in the street to watch.

The minister said: “Today, let us all find resolution and peace as we give Vicky her Christian service and burial in order that you can then move on in your lives.

“Jesus brought the light of God’s love to humanity in many different and powerful ways when He walked this earth, and through His Spirit He still does this today.”

He paid tribute to the “bright bubbly girl” who was a popular pupil at Westquarter Primary School and Graeme High School, and thanked “the people of Scotland” on behalf of Vicky’s family for their support since her disappearance. During the service the mourners sang All Things Bright and Beautiful and How Great Thou Art, and Westlife’s You Raise Me Up was played at the request of Vicky’s father, Michael.

The cortege then passed her old house on its way to New Grandsable Cemetery, near Vicky’s former home on Ward Avenue, Redding, in a plot where her father also wishes to be buried.

At Vicky’s graveside, Mr Smart said: “We gather to commit Vicky’s body to the ground, knowing that after her death some 16 years ago, Vicky’s immortal soul lived on in God’s eternal Kingdom of love.

‘The souls of the innocents are in God’s hands, no torment will touch them, for they are at peace.

“Almighty and ever loving God, Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ longed for us to know how we should live and love and grow, and chose a young person to show us some glimpses here of heaven.

“When youngsters suffer pain and cry and lose their hold on life and die, while we must grieve and wonder why Christ keeps them safe in heaven.

“So we give thanks to God for Vicky, now silent to the world, yet all these years, with her hand in hand in Christ’s, her Lord, and with her mum and her granny, Vicky has lived on in heaven.

“Lord, tell Vicky how we’ll always care, and miss the years we longed to share, until in answer to our prayer, we meet Vicky again in heaven.”

Vicky’s remains were found alongside those of 18-year-old Dinah McNicol, from Essex, buried in the garden of a house in Margate, Kent. Peter Tobin, 61, has been charged with Vicky’s murder.

2007-11-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

Suspect, 41, is charged with murder of Rachel Nickell
By Jonathan Brown and James Macintyre
Published: 29 November 2007
Fifteen years after the brutal murder of Rachel Nickel on Wimbledon Common shocked a nation and threw the one-time suspect Colin Stag into the limelight, police have announced they are charging another man for the killing amid fresh hope the case could finally be solved.
Robert Napper, 41, will appear at City of Westminster magistrates' court on Tuesday, Scotland Yard said, charged with sexually assaulting and stabbing to death Ms Nickell in broad daylight as she walked with her two-year-old son.
Hilary Bradfield, of the Crown Prosecution Service's Serious Casework Unit, said the new charges were brought after a "painstaking" review of the case. "As the investigation has developed, I have been carefully examining and assessing the evidence," she said. "It has been a painstaking process and alongside the police we have considered all aspects of the case in detail.
"This week, we have reached a decision that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and have authorised the police to charge [Mr Napper]."
Scotland Yard would only say: "Robert Napper, 4

First change the culture

2007-11-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

The government plans rape law reforms, but in a society that assumes women make it up, how can they be implemented? Julie Bindel, journalist from the Guardian explores why without cultural change rape will always be hard to "prove" as rape happens to normal women with normal lives. Rape is often just seen as sex gone bad as opposed to a violent physical and psychological attack on a woman abusing her inner being as well as her body. rape is used to control women and is a hate fuelled crime like no other - it is not sexual in any way except to violate the victims sexuality and very being. Women are too often seen as fantasists, liars or whores rather than victims. Why is this?

All Julie Bindel articles

November 28, 2007 2:00 PM | Printable version

Rape, it would seem, has become a "political football": so says Vera Baird, the solicitor general. She was referring to David Cameron's recent speech, in which he said that his party was committed to challenging the appallingly low conviction rate.

Baird, who is due to announce reforms to the laws surrounding rape, understands the issue. Ten years ago, I coordinated a scheme in West Yorkshire in conjunction with the CPS, to deliver specialist training to prosecutors in all aspects of sexual assault. Baird, who was at that time a practicing criminal barrister, delivered sessions during the course. She spoke of the myths and misunderstandings surrounding rape, such as there being a typical victim and perpetrator, and also about the ways in which women are blamed for "bringing it on themselves" if they had any physical contact with her rapist before the attack.

Baird went down extremely well with the prosecutors. She told them that in order to secure more convictions, they had to be at least as well equipped with all the facts of the case, and of the research around rape, as the defence. Baird certainly cares about rape and its consequences.

Now here is the problem. The government can try all the tweaking of laws possible, and go out on a limb to introduce measures that may dispel myths held by judge and jury, and it might help a bit. It can clarify, and re-clarify the issues of consent, and attempt to stop the introduction of the previous sexual history of complainants. Such measures, however, will only be successful if rigorously applied by the judge, and adhered to by the jury.

In 2003, I was part of a research team at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, looking at the effectiveness of the restrictions in allowing previous sexual history as part of the defence in rape trials. Much of the time, the defence snuck such evidence in without the prosecution or judge even noticing, or applied to have it heard and succeeded.

During breaks in the trial, I heard both prosecution and defence lawyers joke with each other about the complainant, her evidence, and in one instance, her underwear (which was being displayed as an exhibit). Outside of the court, during one case involving a 15-year-old complainant and an adult man, so-called specially trained police officers were having a laugh about the sexual positions described by the defendant during his evidence, all within earshot of the complainant's family. Like all the other cases I observed, the defendant was acquitted.

Time after time, I observed, both in CPS case files and in court, the police did not gather evidence at the scene, the CPS were reluctant to proceed to trial because the complainant had some sort of relationship with the defendant, and judges did not ensure the law was properly applied.

There is no doubt that reports in the press about so-called false allegations of rape have increased dramatically, to the point where much of the general public believes that most women "make it up".

There is little point in telling juries at rape trials about the psychological impact of rape, as Baird may well propose, if the jury does not consider any act to be "real rape" unless a man jumps out and grabs a virgin nun and ravishes her in the bushes, while holding a knife to her throat and wearing a black mask. Any reform to the current law will fail unless the government runs a massive awareness campaign, along the same lines of those to deter drink driving and smoking. If it were to do that, and educate the public about the realities of rape, by the time they sit on rape trials as jurors, people might just understand that all rape is "real rape". Baird, as I said earlier, cares about rape. If she could persuade the Treasury to spend some serous money on public education, we would undoubtedly see a significant rise in the numbers of men committing this hideous crime convicted.

2007-11-27T16:44:00.000-08:00

Domestic abuse level in city soars by 11%
IAN SWANSON SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR (
iswanson@edinburghnews.com)
DOMESTIC abuse in Edinburgh has soared by 11 per cent in a year, according to new figures published today. A total of 5784 incidents of domestic abuse were reported to police in the Capital in 2006-07, compared with 5178 the previous year. The increase is higher than the seven per cent rise recorded in the rest of Scotland.

Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell claimed the rise in the reporting of domestic abuse showed more people were recognising it was unacceptable.
But he said the figures were the tip of the iceberg and showed there was more work still to do. Across Scotland, the statistics showed recorded incidents of domestic abuse rose from 45,812 in 2005-06 to 48,801 in 2006-07.

Separate findings from the 2006 Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey, also published today, showed only one-in-five victims of abuse by a partner had reported the incident to police.

Mr Maxwell said: "It is deplorable that male violence against women, through crimes such as rape or domestic abuse, continues to devastate many lives. The rise in the reporting of incidents shows that while we have made progress in changing attitudes and encouraging women to report domestic abuse, there is still a lot more work to do in tackling this problem."

He said the Scottish Government's campaign: "Domestic abuse, there's no excuse", had succeeded in increasing awareness of the issue. "More people now recognise that all forms of domestic abuse are wrong," he said.

"While many women are seeking help from support services such as the Domestic Abuse Helpline and Scottish Women's Aid, and more women are reporting incidents to the police, this new research also shows that many are not.

"It's important that we do all we can to encourage people to report incidents so we can know the true extent of this problem and ensure that perpetrators are properly punished."
Community safety spokesman for the Conservatives, John Lamont described today's figures as shocking.

He said: "To see less than half of all incidents being recorded as a crime is dreadful.
"The fact that an increasing number of cases - 57 per cent - involve known repeat victimisation shows we are not doing enough to get abusive partners out of abusive relationships.

"In many ways this is often the worst form of abuse, as the abused partner often feels trapped in a relationship - sometimes unable or unwilling to ask for help.
"We all have a duty to play our part, as family, friends or neighbours to help mend this part of our broken society.

"Our social and voluntary services need support to help victims of domestic abuse and the state must reflect society's abhorrence of abusers in the way it pursues, prosecutes and sentences these people. Domestic abuse must not be the hidden crime that shames 21st century Scotland."

2007-11-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

Man guilty of abusing young girls

Mackie admitted abusing the girls in a police interview A man from Cumbernauld has been convicted of a series of sexual offences against two young girls over a 15 year period.

A jury at Airdrie Sheriff Court found John Mackie, 50, guilty of six charges of using lewd and libidinous behaviour and one of sexual assault.

The offences took place at homes in Glasgow and Cumbernauld between February 1991 and July 2006.
Sentence was deferred until January and Mackie was remanded in custody.

The court heard that one of the girls was abused between the ages of eight and 17, while the other, who suffered from learning difficulties, was abused between the ages of 10 and 15.

During the trial the first girl, now aged 16, gave evidence to a closed court via a CCTV link.

The second girl, who is now 24, spoke in open court. She said: "He gave me love bites on the neck and I was embarrassed to go to school. Teachers at that time did contact social work. "At first the abuse would happen about three times a month then it stepped up to once a week until I was about 13."

A taped police interview with Mackie was played to the jury. In it he said: "Why I did it, I haven't a clue, but I remember abusing the two girls over a number of years. I was drunk, I don't know why it happened. " However, when questioned in the witness box the accused denied the abuse. Sheriff Morag Galbraith said: "Given the very serious nature of the charges I doubt whether my powers are strong enough and I'm considering remitting you to the High Court for sentence." Mackie was placed on the sex offenders register.

2007-11-26T15:59:00.001-08:00

This is not the first time this has happened - these telly programmes seem to mostly based on abuse dressed up as misunderstandings,communication problems or relationship difficulties. If we stopped watchin then that would give a clear message and if you must watch phone in and complain that you feel that the woman has been put at risk and the show is behaving unethically and is concluding with the perpetrator.

Svetlana Orlova had no idea why she had been invited on to the daytime television show and she was shocked to find herself face to face with the man who had beaten her for years.
She was further stunned when he produced an engagement ring and proposed. Looking deeply uncomfortable, she shook her head.
The public rebuff cost her her life. Within days she had been stabbed to death and her former lover was under arrest for murder.
Now ministers in Spain are to hold crisis talks with broadcasters as the nation searches its soul over its trashy television culture.
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Ricardo Navarro, 30, had told Patricia’s Daily Show, which has an audience of 2 million, that he and Ms Orlova had broken up because of a dispute over money. Ms Orlova contested that, saying: “There were many other things”, but without elaborating or mentioning that she had a restraining order against her former boyfriend.
Undeterred, Mr Navarro went on bended knee and asked her to marry him. “Come back,” he said sounding tearful, as the audience cooed. “You are everything for me.”
Ms Orlova shook her head slightly. “Well Svetlana, say something!” the host exclaimed. “We are all on tenter-hooks. Is that ‘no’, or ‘I don’t know’? Say it clearly.”
Five days later Mr Navarro was arrested after allegedly stabbing Ms Orlova repeatedly in the neck. She died in hospital.
Baldomero Limón of Boomerang, the production company responsible for the programme, said that producers were “devastated”, but denied any responsibility in Ms Orlova’s death, saying that they were also deceived by Mr Navarro. “Nothing made us suspect that a tragedy like this could occur.”
Viewers’ groups have called for the show to be taken off the air.
It is not the first time that a woman has been killed after appearing on Spanish television shows. In 1997, Ana Orantes, 60, was doused with petrol and burnt alive by her husband, José Parejo. Unable to get any help from the authorities, she had gone on a television show to speak of the beatings that she endured at his hands. In November 2004, Andrés Reyes killed his 18-year-old girlfriend after she appeared on a television show to speak about his abuse of her.
The Spanish Government has named the high rate of violence against women in Spain a priority and wants broadcasters to draw up a code of conduct for these programmes. “Domestic violence should not be a television spectacle,” MarÍa Teresa Fernández de la Vega, the Deputy Prime Minister, said.
Sixty-nine women have been killed by their partners this year. Despite government efforts, Spanish judges are accused of being sympathetic to men who are violent towards their partners. Women’s rights groups expressed outrage last week after a judge gave a reduced sentence to Mariano Navas, who stabbed his girlfriend in 2005, citing his “humiliation” on Patricia’s Daily Show as mitigating factor.

London Reclaim the Night March

2007-11-25T14:33:00.001-08:00

There was a reclaim the night march last night in London and there is another one in Glasgow on 29th December. Women really do need to re-enforce the idea that we need more done about rape and abuse. We need those convictions to go up in order women feel confident that she will be believed but better than then it would be better if men did not rape and abuse women.

Fighting fear

Until all women stand up together in the struggle against male violence, they will continue to rape, beat and abuse us

All Julie Bindel articles
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November 23, 2007 4:00 PM | Printable version

To some, feminist activism seems old hat. One of my friends, who has been involved in the women's liberation movement for as long as I have, sneered at me when I asked her if she was coming on this Saturday's Reclaim the Night march through London. The inference was that she had something better to do.

Well there is nothing better I can think of to do on Saturday. If you are planning to watch X Factor instead of marching alongside your sisters, chanting fabulous slogans such as "men off the streets," and "yes means yes, and no means no," consider this. Without feminist activism, rape in marriage would be legal; it would be perfectly acceptable to pay women less than men for the same job and sack them when pregnant; and domestic violence would be considered a normal part of family life. While you open that bottle of wine and put your feet up, more than two thousand of us will be protesting about the atrocities inflicted on women by men and telling men they will not continue to get away with it.

Although it is fashionable to look down on what is thought to be old-fashioned feminism - doing direct action, naming men as the problem, criticising rather than embracing the sex industry - women need to be out on the streets, protesting about sexual violence more than ever.

Despite four decades of campaigning against domestic violence, over 100 women are still killed every year by current and former partners. More rapes than ever are reported but far fewer convicted than the 1970s, and the sex industry is growing at an alarming rate, globally. There are so few convictions for child sexual abuse, it may as well be legal to rape an under-five year old, and sexual harassment in the workplace is still a major problem for women. I could go on.

Male violence towards women and children - yes, male - is pandemic. We must force them to change - to stop raping, killing and abusing us. When I march on Saturday, I will be doing so for women everywhere - even those of you watching X Factor - because sexual violence is the only thing in the world that affects all women, and therefore working towards eliminating it should be something we are all involved in.

Before you start having a go, telling me you have not been raped, or beaten by your partner, or sexually abused, or flashed, let me ask you (women) something. Can you honestly say, hand on heart, that you have never feared rape? Have you never modified your behaviour, even just a little, for fear of being attacked? Remember that time you took a minicab home, alone and drunk? Did you feel relieved the next day that nothing bad happened to you? Or when you walked through a park late at night alone? All women know that if we have not been raped, we are lucky. We are so accustomed to living with the constant, nagging fear of sexual violence that we rarely notice it is there half the time.

So let us stop ignoring the obvious. Until we all stand up together and make ourselves visible in the struggle against male violence, they will continue to rape, beat and abuse us. Let's see you there on Saturday. And men, if you wish to be part of the solution rather than the problem, perhaps you could send the organisers a donation for next year's march? Something tells me we will not have a world free of sexual violence by next November.

25th November is the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women

2007-11-25T07:01:00.001-08:00

UN rights chief calls for end to violence against women

17 hours ago

GENEVA (AFP) — The top United Nations human rights official urged states worldwide to take more action against rape, domestic abuse and all other forms of violence against women.

"Every day, in all corners of the world, countless women and girls are killed, mutilated, beaten, raped, sold into sexual slavery or tortured," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in a statement ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25.

"This impunity is built on a foundation of discrimination and inequality ... unless these inequalities are addressed, including in the economic and social spheres, the violence will persist," Arbour said.

"A woman will not report rape if we continue to stigmatise the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators," she added.

Just last week, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman who had been gang-raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes after she spoke to the media about the case.

"We must demand that states honour their commitments to bring perpetrators to justice and provide redress for their victims," Arbour urged.

Dundee Murder trial

2007-11-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

Tests show accused grabbed jumper of woodland murder victim, court is told

BRIAN HORNE

FORENSIC tests suggest a man on trial for the Templeton Woods murder grabbed the victim's jumper, a court was told yesterday.

Dr Jonathan Whitaker, one of the world's top experts on DNA profiling, said the results of tests on Elizabeth McCabe's clothing, and a hair root, linked her to the alleged killer Vincent Simpson.

Taken together, the combined odds of the DNA coming from someone unrelated to Simpson were one in 40 million, he said.

Ms McCabe, 20, disappeared in February 1980 after a night out with friends in Dundee city centre. The nursery nurse's remains were found in Templeton Woods 16 days later.

A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh has seen photos of the naked body with a blue jumper draped over the victim's head and shoulders.

After years in storage, the jumper was sent to a specialist forensic lab in Wetherby, Yorkshire, for further tests after the murder hunt was reopened.

Dr Whitaker yesterday explained how swabs were taken from three different parts of the blue jumper - even though there were no stains visible to the naked eye. Tests for either blood or semen had proved negative.

All results matched the DNA profile of Simpson.

Dr Whitaker said "a fair and reasonable estimate" of the DNA from the right-hand side of the jumper's neck coming from someone else was one in 320,000. A swab from the right arm produced a result which could have come from one in 38 of the population.

The chances of DNA from the back of the jumper coming from someone other than Simpson was one in 105,000.

Dr Whitaker said: "In my opinion, these DNA profile results provide extremely strong support for the assertion that the DNA recovered from the hair and the blue jumper has originated from Vincent Simpson."

Questioned by advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, prosecuting, about the DNA result from the jumper's neck, the forensic scientist added: "This result is of particular significance since the DNA profile result is what I would expect to find if Vincent Simpson had grabbed the jumper in the area of the neck, thus transferring his DNA to this area."

Earlier, the trial heard that DNA extracted from the root of a hair found on a black plastic sheet had also been sent to Dr Whitaker's lab for testing. The sheet is said to have been used to take Elizabeth's body to Dundee Royal Infirmary's mortuary, although Simpson's defence team claims there is no proof that it was the same sheet.

Dr Whitaker told the trial that the figure of one in 40 million resulted from tests on the jumper and the hair root DNA only.

The forensic scientist also agreed with Mark Stewart, QC, defending, that there were "provisos and caveats" in his report on his findings.

Simpson, 61, now of Camberley, Surrey, denies murdering Ms McCabe, of Lochee, Dundee, in February 1980. At the time Simpson was living in Newtyle, near Dundee, and operating a private-hire taxi business. He has given the court details of an alibi and a list of 13 names - one or more of them the true killer, he claims.

The trial continues.

Woman is murder by her estranged husband

2007-11-24T16:10:00.001-08:00

This John Smith guy murders his estranged wife whilst on bail for domestic abuse offences, he has a history of offending against her and yet it takes a judge to ask for a risk assessment once poor Kelly Smith has been butchered - it's a bit late now? What was the sheriff thinking when he granted bail? What risk assessment was done then? And why is it important that they had sex, why is this reported? Every three days in Britain a man kills his female partner or ex-partner, their children are left without a mother and a father. Well if the Scottish Parliament wants to do something about children's experiencing domestic abuse then they need to buck up the legal system and hold perpetrators of violence and abuse of their partners and ex-partners accountable.

Abattoir Butcher Murders Wife

Nov 24 2007 By Arnot Mcwhinnie

25 Knife Wounds In Frenzied Attack

A SLAUGHTERHOUSE butcher stabbed his estranged wife 25 times just minutes after they had sex, a court heard yesterday.

Mother-of-two Kelly Smith died after her husband, John Smith, launched his frenzied attack.

Her hands and wrists were sliced open as she tried to defend herself from the onslaught.

At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, 28-year-old Smith admitted murdering her.

Smith had previous convictions for assaulting his wife and for a breach of the peace involving her.

The fatal attack happened in a friend's house at Glasgow Street, Ardrossan, Ayrshire, where Smith had been staying after he and Kelly split up.

Kathleen Harper, prosecuting, said Smith was on bail at the time and was banned from either approaching or contacting Kelly or going to their marital home.

On the evening she died, on February 19, Kelly drove her two children, aged eight and two, to a friend's house to be looked after for the night while she went out for a drink in a Saltcoats pub with another pal.

On the way home, she went to see her estranged husband.

An argument began but it calmed down to the point where they made up and had sex.

Afterwards, however, Smith went into the kitchen and returned with a knife which he plunged into Kelly as she sat on the bed.

When she fell to the floor, he continued to stab her and then stabbed himself in the left arm.

Ms Harper said Smith took his wife's house keys from her bag, intending to get her car from the family home and escape.

But he couldn't find the car keys there because Kelly had left them and the car in her friend's driveway.

He then went to the friend's house, threw stones at her window to waken her up and said he was to take the children and get the car keys. But he was told to leave.

Smith then went to another friend's house and told him: "I really done it this time.

"I need to get away from here. I think I've killed her."

They went round to Smith's house and he went in, returning to shout: "Aye, she's deid."

Police got a 999 call from Smith saying he had stabbed his wife and, when they arrived, he was still inside the house.

When he was taken to the police station, Smith asked detectives several times: "How long will I get for murder?"

Asked why he got a knife after they had made up, he said: "Coz madness.

"Just things going through ma heid and I've just lashed oot and I shouldn't have,poor lassie."

Asked why he stabbed himself in the arm, he replied: "I just thought maybe if we just both got it together.

"I wish I'd put it through me mate and then the two of us would have went the same way."

A post-mortem revealed that Kelly would not have died straight away but would have bled to death.

She had received internal wounds damaging the lungs, her spleen, a kidney, small and large bowel and liver.

Judge Lord Brailsford called for a risk assessment report before formally sentencing Smith to life in January next year.

Discussion in Scottish Parliament 22 November 2007

2007-11-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

The Scottish Parliament discussed giving £40 million over the next 3 years to domestic abuse particularly in relation to working with children. I do have an issue with the term "male abuse" as it signifies a biological determinism in relation to why men might abuse women. I am quite insistent on calling it men's abuse as as a Marxist and a feminist I see it as a construction of class society and a gender construction that comes from that. So I winced a bit at all the "male abuse" bit but it doesn't really matter not that much. There are issues about not ring fencing the money and I don't know what consequence that will have - hopefully not be damaging to existing work. I will report back on this as soon as I know.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-07/sor1122-02.htm#Col3741

Freedom from Fear March

2007-11-22T15:41:00.000-08:00

CLYDEBANK WOMEN'S AID
Freedom from Fear
march
(part of 16 days of action against violence against women)
Sisters resisting male violence and abuse
Thurs 6th December @ 6.30 pm
Assemble Hall Street, Clydebank
Going to the Playdrome games hall for tea and coffee
Demonstrate your rights as a woman to live safe from the
fear of and actual male violence and abuse, both in the home
and in our community.
This is an event for women and children only
For more information contact Clydebank Women’s Aid on
0141 952 8118
or @ clydebankwomensaid@hotmail.com

2007-11-22T10:54:00.001-08:00

Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record yet remains very good friends with Briatain and the US of A. Indeed Gordon Brown had tea with King Abdullah only last month - meanwhile a woman who was a victim of a gang rape has been sentenced to torture by the state - 200 lashes and 6 months in jail because she broke the law. It is a scandal, once again women are toldtomodify their behaviour in order not to tempt abusive, dangerous men. What has Britain or the USA said? Very little. My partner was flung out of the Scottish Parliament for protesting when one of the Saudi Princes came to visit. He lent up with a cut to his head when he was wrestled to the floor by the police. Aye, money talks. If you are rich you really can get away with torture and murder!

NEWS MIDDLE EAST
Saudi court punishes rape victim
Human Rights Watch has called on King Abdullahto cancel the ruling on the woman [AP]
A Saudi Arabian court has doubled a corporal punishment sentence imposed on a rape victim after she spoke out about her case.

But the decision to give a woman who was gang raped a six months jail term and 200 lashes received only mild criticism from the US on Monday.
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An official at the general court in Qatif, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, said judges had increased the sentence because of the woman's "attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media".

The woman's name has not been released.
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The case has drawn criticism internationally, with Canada saying on Monday it would complain to the Saudi authorities about the sentence.

Canadian reaction

Josee Verner, Canada's minister responsible for the status of women, called the Saudi ruling "barbaric" and said it would only further violate the 19-year-old victim.

Verner said Canada would formally express its condemnation to "the appropriate Saudi authorities".

But the US, which wants Saudi Arabia to attend its Middle East conference in Annapolis next week, did not condemn the ruling.

Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the US state department, said: "This is a part of a judicial procedure overseas in the court of a sovereign country," when asked to comment on the case.

"That said, most would find this relatively astonishing that something like this happens."

Asked whether the Saudi authorities should reconsider the sentence against the woman, McCormack said he could not "get involved in specific court cases in Saudi Arabia dealing with its own citizens".

'Illegal mingling'

In October 2006, the woman was sentenced to 90 lashes for what the court called "illegal mingling".

According to Human Rights Watch, the woman said she had met a male friend who had promised to return a photograph of her.

A Saudi woman can only have a husband ora male relative as an escort in publicAfter she met him in his car, the pair were attacked by a gang of seven men who allegedly raped them both several times.
The man was also sentenced to 90 lashes. Of the gang prosecuted in the case, four were convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to between one and five years in prison and between 80 and 1,000 lashes, Human Rights Watch said.

Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, the woman's lawyer and a human rights campaigner, criticised the court's decision publically and has subsequently had his licence to practise law suspended.

He is also facing a hearing by a justice ministry disciplinary committee in December for appearing regularly on television and talking about the case.

Impunity

Farida Deif, researcher in the women's rights division of Human Rights Watch, said: "A courageous young woman faces lashing and prison for speaking out about her efforts to find justice.

"This verdict not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators."

The New York-based rights group has called on King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch, to cancel the ruling against the woman, drop all charges and order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

2007-11-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

Saw this article and I thought Johann Hari has written a thoughtful and considered article - it is not the case that abuse of women is not condoned indeed it is often seen as justified particularly if you are "talented" indeed the abuse of women is often seen as a "character flaw".

Johann Hari: Why do we ignore the abuse of women?
Published: 15 November 2007
When is it okay to beat, rape and stab a woman? When it is okay to call these victims "whiny", "money-grabbing" and "bitches"? The obvious answer is never. But that doesn't seem to be the judgement we make, together, as a culture. No. If the wife-beater/rapist/attempted murderer can write novels, kick a ball, create songs or pose as a liberal politician, we treat their misogyny as an irrelevance or, worse, as a laddish affectation imbuing them with the testosteroney tang of authenticity.

You can see this by looking at four men – about as diverse as they come – who have been lauded as heroes: Norman Mailer, George Best, Tupac Shakur, and Bill Clinton.
For the past six days, we have been saturated with tributes to the "greatness" of Norman Mailer. Not just his work but his life. He has been called "brave", "determined to experience life's richness", "compassionate", even "nice". It is noted only briefly that he violently despised women. He said they are "low, sloppy beasts; they should be kept in cages". He campaigned to halt every move to give women control over their lives, including birth control – because he said he wanted to retain the "thrill" of knowing the woman he was having sex with might later die in childbirth. He said feminists wanted to "destroy men" and wrote a bizarre 300-page book – The Prisoner Of Sex – to "prove" it.

He acted on this hate. He beat his young wife, Adele, punching her in the stomach when she was six months pregnant, and coerced her to have group sex with his friends. One night, in the middle of a party, he picked up a knife and stabbed her. He cut through her breast, only just missing her heart. Then he stabbed her in the back. As she lay there, haemorrhaging, one man reached down to help her. He snapped: "Get away from her. Let the bitch die."

Adele never really recovered. She developed pleurisy and started hacking up black phlegm several times a day. She was too scared even to press charges. She became an alcoholic, sank into poverty and could never trust a man again. When, years later, she told her story in the book The Last Party, the reviews slapped her down. They called her "whiny", "a shrill lush", and "nauseating". The subtext was: how dare this uppity bitch complain about Our Icon? Some even seem to believe that stabbing her made him a better writer – as if one woman is worth sacrificing on the altar of "genius", and it is churlish of her to keep speaking.

(Of course, I believe an artist's work should be assessed entirely separately to his personal life. If we discovered tomorrow that Shakespeare was a child molester, King Lear would still be a masterpiece. But Mailer's misogyny infests his work. As the feminist writer Kate Millett pointed out, his 1965 novel An American Dream "is an exercise in how to kill your wife and be happy ever after". It is revealing that his only genuinely brilliant novel – The Naked And The Dead – has no female characters.)

If Norman Mailer had said black people should be kept in cages, if he had said the civil rights movement wanted to "destroy white people", if he had stabbed a black man in a racist fury, the first line of every obituary would have mentioned it. So why is hatred of women taken less seriously?

It is not only novel-writing that gets you off the hook: if you can kick a ball, we don't seem to mind if you kick a woman. George Best first beat his wife Alex on her 25th birthday, when he punched her to the floor and kicked her six times in the chest and face. Then, on Christmas Day 2003, he gave her a bruised lip and swollen face. "So what if she's in hospital? It's the best place for her," he snapped at the press the next day.

When Paul Gascoigne admitted to having hospitalised his wife, Sheryl, "Bestie" leapt to his defence. "We all give the wife a good slap. I know I do," he said. When Alex finally left him, the press swooped – to attack her. One typical columnist said she had "not done badly" out of him, and claimed Best and Gazza's only flaw was that "they are suckers for romance".

I can almost find traces of this impulse to look away in myself, when it comes to people who have done a few things I admire. The rap artist Tupac is now revered as the messiah of the ghetto, "a man who stood up for black people" with tracks that bordered on genius. So everyone wants to forget about a 19-year-old girl called Ayanna Jackson. In 1993, Tupac met her in a club and coaxed her back to his hotel – where he and his friends gang-raped her. At the trial, the judge called it "a brutal attack on a helpless woman". Tupac did not "stand up" for her, he pinned her down and trashed her life. And Bill Clinton? He has indeed been targeted by right-wing hit machines, trying to take him out for his few liberal policies. And yet, and yet ... Juanita Broaddrick, an Arkansas nurse and supporter of the Democratic Party, told NBC's flagship show Dateline that, in 1978, when she volunteered for his campaign, Clinton lured her into a hotel room, raped her and tore her lip by biting down on it. She has five witnesses who saw her wounds straight after the alleged attack. Broaddrick has never profited from the story, and told it only after she was "outed" by one of the friends who'd heard the tale.

She is only one of several women who have claimed without profit to have been sexually abused by Clinton in strikingly similar ways. As Christopher Hitchens has asked: "What are the chances that three socially and politically respectable women, all political supporters of Mr Clinton and none of them known to each other, would invent almost identical experiences?" (Clinton's spokesman, in effect, claimed these women were liars).

Why do we so carefully turn a blind eye to the bruised bodies of so many abused women? This selective blindness isn't confined to news coverage; it informs our political life. Imagine if in Britain today, hundreds of thousands of men were being pinned down – in hotels, living rooms, and back alleys – and anally raped by their "friends" or acquaintances, and virtually no one was ever punished for it. It would be one of the biggest issues in British politics. Yet it really does happen to women – so it is a third-tier issue, wheeled out once a decade.

This shrugging reaction to the stabbing and raping so enthusiastically carried out by these men is a reminder that millennia of misogyny aren't wiped away in a few decades of progress. Lying dormant beneath the polite feminised surface, there is an atavistic belief that violence against women like Adele Mailer and Alex Best and Ayanna Jackson doesn't quite count. "Let the bitch die," Mailer growled, his hands covered in blood – and still we applaud him to the grave.

j.hari@independent.co.uk

2007-11-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

The Edinburgh Feminist Network organised a Reclaim the Night march on 11 October 2007 - some people commented (correctly) that women were more at risk from men they knew and it therfor was not good politics to have a "reclaim the night" march as it might make the "stranger danger" be over focussed on - I argued against this as women modify their behaviour because of their fear of men's violence. Why can we not reclaim the streets or the night. The march put out a really good message that women will not just put up with men's violence. However it looks like women are at risk from men they don't know. This article was in the Evening News on 21st November 2007.

A WOMAN was raped behind the Playhouse Theatre as revellers headed home just yards away.
The 27-year-old victim had left a nightclub when she was befriended by her attacker at a taxi rank outside the Omni Centre.

She walked down Greenside Lane with the man, who then raped her.
The attack took place in the early hours of Sunday morning, as the city was packed with drinkers who had earlier watched Scotland's defeat to Italy in the Euro 2008 decider.
It was the latest sex attack to take place in the Hillside/London Road area following a string of incidents earlier this year.
Police today appealed for witnesses who were in the area around the Playhouse and taxi rank at the time.
The suspect spoke broken English with a foreign accent. He is described as black, 20 to 30 years, 5ft 8in, of medium build, with a goatee beard, and wearing a cream coloured jumper with horizontal stripes and blue jeans.
The victim had left a club at the top of Leith Walk at 2.30am.
A police spokesman said: "This was a serious sexual assault that left the victim in a considerable state of distress.
"We would appeal to anyone who was in the area at the time and noticed the victim and the suspect speaking to get in touch."
Following the match on Saturday, a man also had his jaw broken during a football-related assault in the city centre. It is understood an argument had broken out between him and a woman with an English accent near the Scotsman Lounge on Cockburn Street.
After the exchange of words, she returned with four friends who assaulted the man, leaving him with a broken jaw. After the assault he was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, before being transferred to St John's.
In September, a teenage girl was indecently assaulted by a 6ft 6in attacker after being dragged into woods off London Road.
The 18-year-old had been waiting for a taxi home at around 2.30am on Leith Street, near the Omni Centre, when a man grabbed her arm. She struggled and her attacker ran off towards London Road. Her attacker spoke with an Eastern European, possibly Polish, accent.
In April, a 17-year-old girl was indecently assaulted by a man after he forced her into his car.
The 17-year-old victim was walking along London Road, when a silver-coloured car pulled up and a man of Turkish appearance jumped out.
And in the early hours of New Year's Day, an acne-scarred attacker indecently assaulted a 28-year-old woman as she walked home from a party. She was pushed against a wall at Sunnybank Terrace, and indecently assaulted before she managed to struggle free.

Another Witch to Burn

2007-11-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Decided to open up a feminist blog based in Edinburgh. I want to catalogue the incidents of men's violence against women as I just don't think it is being taken seriously and I am aware how much there is out there. Please feel free to comment and if you see anything in the press that I haven't posted up please let me know. Please be respectful, though I don't mind robust debate however anything abusive will be taken off.